Category Archives: reconciliation

I have been pondering Jake’s sermon on Proverbs 5 and Wisdom for a couple of weeks now, chewing on it and trying to put it into a context that I can deal with. Here’s where I stand in this endeavor at this point.

I was instantly bothered by the format of a father warning his son to stay away from the adulteress who was seeming lurking around every corner. It sounded like little Shimron could hardly walk to the 7-11 to buy a couple of fig cakes and some new wine in a new skin without at least a couple or three adulteresses hitting him up on the way home for a little hanky-panky.

What I couldn’t help feeling is that it would probably be far more necessary to issue such warnings to daughters than to sons, when you consider the precarious position of women in that patriarchal society. Now to be fair, women enjoyed far greater status in Hebrew culture than they did among the surrounding peoples, from being declared to be created in the image of God in Genesis 1, to gaining legal rights in Numbers 27 (the Daughters of Zelophehad) to being treated equally with men by Jesus.

Still, nobody can reasonably say that women were likely to be the sexual aggressors in Israel in Solomon’s day, or for that matter anything like equal. So that issue bothered me from the beginning and perhaps distracted me somewhat from the main points of the sermon. That left me to fill in my own gaps, which is always a dangerous thing.

But I did just that, and this is the result. So far. My first move was to put down my twenty first century lenses and stop trying to view the Bible as if I was a twenty year old sophomore at Harvard fleeing to a safe space. Proverbs 5 was written at the beginning of the last millennium before the birth of Jesus and the Middle East was then, as it continues to be to this day, a male world. So if it sounds a little androcentric, like, duh!

What struck me though, once I began to consider the book for what it is, is that the woman who really counts is Wisdom; Sophia. She is wise, she is ancient, she is almost omnipresent, if not indeed omnipresent. She was present at the creation of things and danced with joy as God the Father did Their work. Wisdom is calling to you, ready to give you insight that will benefit you in every way if you will only come to her. In fact, it seems as if she is more likely to waylay you on your way to the 7-11, and try to knock some sense into your head before you buy any of those hot dogs that go round and round in the little countertop ovens. You know, maybe she should be called She; She is sort of like a feminine Jesus, but I don’t know about my theological foundation on that one.

What I’ve decided, however, is this: Chapter 5 of Proverbs is providing a contrast; the Way of Wisdom and the way of folly. Both ways are presented in a female form; it’s not like “Be like the Smart Dude and stay away from the Ho.” No, to me its more like “Take the smart road and not the stupid one,” and nothing more than that.

Something I haven’t quite sussed out for myself however is whether or not God used the feminine gender for His portrayal of both wisdom and folly in Proverbs 5 in order to hint to the very masculine culture of the day (and just about all succeeding cultures to this day) that their androcentric views might be off of God’s tracks a little bit. In that chapter both the Way of Wisdom and the way of folly are female; there’s no Great Male Way offered. Was this an early act of God, pressing forward the process of reconciling men and women in equality and respect, a process that is taking a distressingly long time to bear fruit? I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that some more.

“This is really weird” Charlie said softly as he and Rachael took their seats at Beth Shalom church in Vancouver, Washington. “It looks like I’m in Israel.”

“I can’t imagine why that should be” Rachael replied with a chuckle. “After all, we’re a bunch of Jews here who just happen to believe that Yeshua is the Messiah.”

Charlie took in the menorahs, the stars of David, the men wearing the little hats that Jewish men wear, and especially the wall on the right side of the room that was painted to look like the Western Wall in Jerusalem. He even had to walk up to that wall to convince himself that the grass growing in the racks wasn’t real. “So you learned how to be so nice by going to church here?” he asked.

Rachael sighed. “Not really” she answered. “If I really am all that nice, I learned if from my parents. They really are two of the most wonderful people that I ever have known in my life.”

Rachael’s tone grew more somber after she told him that. Charlie remembered her story from the first day that they had met, and began to connect the dots. “But you don’t see them anymore, do you?”

Rachael heaved another sigh and sat silently next to him. After a minute he spoke again. “I’m sorry Rachael. I shouldn’t have brought that up. I guess I forgot that my pain wasn’t the only pain in the world. Let’s just drop the subject, OK?”

“No” she replied. “It’s not good to ‘just drop’ things. Things don’t usually stay dropped. It’s alright Charlie. My parents consider me to be dead in their eyes. They feel that I have left the faith that has sustained my people for thousands of years. In their opinion, that places me outside of the community. I know that they will always love me, but I am as dead to them as your daughter is dead to you. I will be married within the year and, God willing, will begin a family, but my parents, my aunts and uncles, and all of the family except for two black sheep cousins won’t be a part of it.”

“I really am sorry Rachael. I don’t know how to say it better than that.”

“It’s OK Charlie. Really, it is. I feel your sympathy more than hear it, and it’s appreciated. The Holy Spirit interprets our prayers to the Father when our words fall short. I think that the Spirit works like that between humans sometimes too.”

“Oh boy, have I got a lot to learn about this stuff. I really don’t know anything about this Father and Holy Spirit business. I thought it was all about Jesus; er, I mean Yeshua.”

“Yes, it is a lot to learn, and we Jews are very dedicated to learning. ‘We learn so that we can teach’ is a guiding principle with us. But don’t get tangled up in the details. Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Do that and you’re way ahead of the game.”

“Well, that’s not too – – -.”

“Ahhh-Ooohhhh!” A horn wailed. A man emerged from a side door with a long, curled horn raised to his lips. “Ahhh-Ooohhh!” A second man entered the room from a different door, blowing on a similar horn with a higher pitch. The service had officially begun.

Three hours later Charlie and Rachael were walking toward the parking lot. Two hours of service, nearly half of which had been spent singing in Hebrew, had been followed by a meal in a large room downstairs. “Schmooze. Dance. Nosh” said the bulletin that had been handed out at the door, and that is exactly what went on downstairs.

“These people are my family now” Rachael said as they walked toward her car. “They’ll never really take the place of Mom and Dad, but they’re not supposed to. They’re my community. We worship together, pray together, celebrate together, grieve together. We complete each other. I’m not close to everyone that you saw today. In fact, there’s a few with whom I spend as little time as I can. But I would do anything for all of them because they were made in God’s image and Yeshua loves his creation. I will try as best I can to love them too.”

“That explains a lot” Charlie said. “I suppose you believe that the kid that hit you is made in God’s image.”

“Exactly. Yeshua loves him and died to redeem him just as he did to redeem me. So how could I hate him? Hate is the devil’s work, and I’ll let him keep that to himself, as best I can.”

“Rachael, can I just say this?” Charlie asked as they reached her car. “You are one of the sweetest, most kind human beings that I have ever met. I don’t know whether to thank your parents or your God for you, but I feel like a very lucky man to be able to call you my friend.”

Rachael blushed deeply, which lent an extra radiance to her usual beauty. “Thank you Charlie. I really don’t think that I deserve all of that, but a girl loves to hear a compliment.”

“That fact that you don’t think you deserve it makes it all the more applicable” Charlie replied. “Thank you so much for sharing all of this with me. “I don’t know where I’ll go with it, but you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“I’m glad for that, Charlie” she replied. “OK, I’ll see you soon at the garden.” Rachael climbed into her car, backed out of the parking slot, and disappeared into the traffic on 49th Street. Charlie watched until she drew out of sight.

He had no set plans for the rest of the day. Carolyn was helping her sister to move a niece to Cheney, Washington, where she was beginning college at Eastern Washington University, and would be out of touch for a couple of days. Charlie had been given a lead by his friend Manny Baca on a house that a speculator intended to have built for immediate sale, and Carolyn had been agreeable to letting Charlie put his crew on the job while all of the proper hoops were being jumped through on the strip mall project, which increasingly looked like it was going to happen. Lester and the crew were good men. They appreciated Charlie’s efforts to keep them busy, and repaid him by being diligent in their work.

Charlie drove by the project and saw that footings had been dug and forms were being set for the foundation. Nobody was working that day and there was nothing there to inspect, but Charlie got out of his truck and walked among the trenches and forms and rough plumbing anyway.

The idea slowly formed in Charlie’s mind that for most of his life places like this had been his church. Building codes, tax codes, balance sheets and labor laws had been his Bible, or maybe his Torah, the rolled up scroll or whatever it’s called that was carried around the room at the Jewish/Christian church he had been at that morning.

Those building codes and laws had outlined how he should live, what rules to follow, how to succeed, and what gave his life meaning. But when the hammer of Stevie’s death came down on his head those codes didn’t have any answers for him. Despair could not be countered with the hope offered by a balance sheet. A family could not be held together by five nails in the field, on sixteen inch centers.

Charlie felt an unexpected moment of hatred toward the trades; this false god. It promised him that it would be sufficient for him but it was a damned lie. The trades had stabbed him in the back and then thrown him under the bus when he needed it the most. Then he remembered Rachael’s words: “Hate is the devil’s work.” With an effort he switched gears and, maybe for the first time, looked at the trenches and pipes and forms around him and saw what they really are, which is trenches and pipes and forms, and nothing more or less than that.

Charlie inspected those artifacts one more time, but as a construction project this time, and not as a sacrament. Satisfied with what he saw, he climbed into his truck and debated where to go next. Billy was at home, studying hard in order to get a good start on his program at the community college. Charlie could go there and do a little work on the main house where Billy’s parents lived, but he didn’t feel like it at the moment. Finally, he simply turned on the engine, put the truck into gear and began to drive.

It seemed as if the truck drove itself, and soon Charlie saw that he was near the Blake Meadows neighborhood where he and Maureen had lived. Charlie had not been in this neighborhood since the separation and felt an aversion to going into it now that he realized his proximity.

Another feeling overwhelmed that aversion. Was it curiosity? A desire for self-punishment? A hope for, what? Hope itself? Charlie didn’t know, but whatever it’s provenance, that feeling gave him the steel to turn left onto Winston Street. After a few turns he pulled up in front of 14513 NE Brownfield.

He parked across the street but allowed the motor to continue to idle. The house looked a little the worse for wear. It had been only two and a half years since he had lived there, but more like three and a half since he had cared about the place. Now the roof shingles were sporting a coat of moss, thanks to the shade provided by the Enyerts’ maple tree next door.

The paint on the trim around the garage door was cracking at the bottom, where the splash from years of rain had weakened it The lawn needed mowing and was sprinkled with a crop of dandelions. Charlie felt a sadness, and an impulse to make an offer to buy the place back and restore it to health. He quickly laid that aside however. “You’ve moved on” he reminded himself. “Maureen and Jack are moving on. There’s nothing to be gained here, so it’s time to leave this place alone to be somebody else’s problem.”

Charlie put the truck into gear and drove through the neighborhood, remembering people, places and events in the same manner as when he had walked through his old neighborhood in San Diego. “That was yesterday” he thought. “I’m more interested in today and tomorrow.” At last he turned out of the neighborhood and after more aimless wandering found himself on the edge of downtown. Having nothing better to do, he drove on into the area, found an empty spot along Main Street, pulled into it and shut down his motor.

Charlie simply sat in the cab of his truck, listening to the ‘ping,ping’ of the engine cooling. “Why am I so melancholy?” he asked himself. “Things are as good for me now as they have ever been, and yet I feel empty and aimless. What the heck is this all about?” After a few minutes he emerged from the truck and began to walk. Leroy’s was not too far away, but LuAnn wouldn’t be working there that day. He had no intention of eating but he decided to walk past the restaurant anyway. It was almost ready to close. He looked through the front window and saw Peggy cleaning up the last tables. He waved to her and she waved back.

Charlie walked south, down Main. “Funny” he thought. “I enjoyed seeing Peggy and waving to her, and she’s not one of my favorite people.” He passed by the pawn shops, past the homeless people congregating outside of a kitchen that soon would be passing out soup and sandwiches, and finally under the railroad bridge to where the path across the I-5 bridge began. “I haven’t beenhere since that night last spring” he thought, and then he began walking up the approach and then onto the bridge itself. The noise was awful, but he tuned it out and focused on a spot perhaps a seventy five yards in front of him.

When he reached that spot Charlie stopped. The pedestrian path widened here at the middle of the river. He looked over the railing at the water and watched it gurgle, ripple, and flow around the concrete pier and on down river towards the sea. Today there were no faces imploring him to jump over the railing into those waters, and no voices coming out of the white noise produced by the traffic.

He stared into that water and thought of the Maureen who had visited him that night, and of the Jack who screamed at him to jump. Now he had new faces to occupy his memory; Jack eating tacos and talking excitedly about music and history, and a forgiving Maureen offering her hand in friendship and mutual concern for their son’s welfare before driving away to meet Carl. “Those are a good deal more welcome than the last faces were” he thought. He continued to stare at the corner of the pier, where Stevie’s body had once appeared to be bumping up against it in the waves. Today there was nothing but water, with the light of the sun sparkling on the tiny waves. Stevie had elected to stay dead and buried today.

Charlie stayed there for perhaps twenty minutes, looking at where ghosts once played and beckoned. Several pedestrians and bicyclists walked and rode past him. He was aware that some looked at him strangely. “Probably think I’m going to jump” he thought. He assumed that the ones he didn’t pay attention to were looking at him in the same way. Finally he grew tired of staring at the water, or to be more accurate he found no further reason to stay there. He turned his back on that place and walked back across the bridge and into Vancouver.

Charlie’s restlessness was tempered but not cured. He kept walking, and soon was walking past the apartment building where he had once lived. “Existed would be more like it” he said to himself. He walked past the window that he had nearly always kept open. Today it was open too, probably in order to let a breath of cool air penetrate to allay the stuffiness of the warm summer day. When he had lived there it was open in order to make the path easier for anyone who wanted to enter the apartment and kill the occupant in the process.

He didn’t linger near the apartment. There were no good memories there and no good reason to linger, so he began his walk back to where the truck was parked. That last few blocks led him past the big cathedral that he had entered a couple of times before, and he decided that he may as well go inside and pay it one more visit if it was open.

The building was in fact open, and Charlie stepped through the heavy wooden doors, into the cool interior of the cathedral. There was nobody in the sanctuary at that time of the day. Charlie was not sure why he had come in to this place. He thought of the times the he had been there before; of how odd it felt and how he had been afraid that somebody would talk to him. It now occurred to him that that was exactly what was causing his restlessness that day. He wanted somebody to talk to.

Billy was busy, Carolyn was out of town, and his crew was off work today. Rachael was relaxing at home on this sabbath day. The only person with whom he could possibly connect at this time of the day was Walt, who was probably harvesting vegetables to take to the food bank. Walt was a friend, it was true, but he was not what Charlie needed at this time.

On an impulse, he pulled out his phone and punched in Jack’s number. Perhaps his son would spend a few minutes chatting with his lonely father. After five rings the sound of a dog barking came over the phone, followed by a message: “Hi! This is Spunky the Dog. My boy Jack is not available. For the price of a bone I’ll pass on any message that you leave after the beep. Woof. Woof.” Charlie thought about hanging up but rejected that idea out of hand. He had already hung up on his son enough for one lifetime. “Hi Jack. This is your Dad. I was just listening to a work by Haydn and it made me think of you. I’ll try to touch bases with you later. Bye.”

Charlie hung up and put his phone away. “It’s probably bad form speaking on a phone in church anyway” he thought. “Even if nobody’s here.” He sat on the hard wooden pew for a while longer, thinking that he should go somewhere, but unable to think of anywhere to go that was any better than were he already was.

At last he arose and began to look at the art work, in the same manner as he had when he came here the previous spring. The same statues; the same saints with their fingers raised in a silent blessing, the same sad Madonnas, the same bleeding Jesus. Yeshua. Charlie looked closely at the statue of the crucified Yeshua. There was blood running down his forehead and into his beard, from the nails in his hands and feet, and from his side. “I wonder what made that wound” Charlie thought.

Once again Charlie walked around looking at the pictures that hung on the walls and depicted Yeshua’s very bad day. The art was beautiful, but Charlie looked more deeply into the story this time. Yeshua condemned by a Roman governor, Yeshua, already bloodied, receiving his cross. Yeshua stumbles. “Man, that guy got a really bad deal” he thought. “How could he carry that cross even if he hadn’t been beat to a pulp. I know how heavy that much wood would be.”

Now some guy gets to carry the cross for Yeshua. A woman wipes his bloodied face. He falls again. “The Rabbi didn’t talk about that today. Why did Jesus/Yeshua have to do all of that?” Yeshua is stripped, he’s nailed to the cross. Charlie looked over at the statue of the crucified Yeshua and thought “That statue isn’t an isolated moment frozen in time. That was part of a bigger, horrible deal.” Yeshua finally dies, is removed from the cross and is buried.

“So, Rachael believes that this Yeshua went through all of this and is still alive. I don’t know how you can believe such a thing, but she does and it guides her to be one of the most decent people I know.” Charlie’s internal debate continued. “But Carolyn’s a wonderful person too, and I’ve never heard her mention anything about religion, or if she has, I’ve forgotten it. So why do I feel drawn to this? Why did I go to church – she called it a synagogue – with Rachael this morning? Was it just to be with Rachael? No. She’s a lovely woman, but that’s not why I went.

And why am I here now? This place with its saints and candles and bleeding god/hero is just as foreign to my life as is the Hebrew and the horns and all of the other trappings were this morning. Why did I come here, and more important, why do I want to stay?”

Charlie failed to find a good answer to that question and abruptly turned to leave the cathedral, and promptly walked right into a man in dark clothing and a white collar, exploding a box of papers that he was carrying and spraying hot coffee over both of them.

“Shit!” Charlie barked. “I’m so sorry! Let me help you with these.” He bent down and began to gather up the papers and was quickly joined by his victim in that task. After a moment though the man in black began to chuckle, then to laugh, and finally sat down on the floor with his back against the wall, right underneath where Yeshua was being laid to rest by some guy accompanied by a couple of grieving women, and laughed until tears ran down his face.

This was confusing to Charlie. He finished collecting the papers and tried to give them to the man, who could hardly compose himself enough to receive them. His laughter was as infectious as a benevolent bubonic plague, and soon a confused Charlie began to chuckle too. He, too, sat down and leaned against the wooden pew opposite where the man in black rested.

“You’re a pastor, aren’t you?” Charlie asked. “Or a priest? I don’t know much about these things, but I’m pretty sure that you’re not a rabbi.”

“Father Krempke, but you can call me anything that you like, except late for dinner. And you are – – -?”

“Uh, Charlie. Charlie Hamer.”

“Pleased to meet you, Charlie Hamer. I take it you’re not Catholic.” Father Krempke said as he began to get his laughter under control. “A good Catholic boy would never steamroll a priest carrying his coffee. His pathetic scribblings perhaps” and he pointed toward the papers. “But never his coffee.”

“Oh, you mean shit? It seemed perfectly suitable for the occasion to me. I’m just glad that you couldn’t hear what I was thinking. You can call me a priest if that is more comfortable to you, but I wouldn’t mind if you called me John. That’s what my friends call me.” The priest then looked at his empty cup of coffee and the brown liquid on the stone floor. “I suppose I should get that up and get myself another cup. Would you like to join me?”

Charlie felt at ease with this affable young man – what was he, in his thirties? – and offered to clean up the mess while Father Krempke poured two cups of coffee. Soon they were seated in the pew near where the collision had occurred beneath the fourteenth station of the cross, sipping their coffee and becoming acquainted. Father Krempke asked him about his life; not in an inquisitorial manner but as if he was genuinely interested. Charlie responded to this young man’s kindness and interest and spoke of his going to the synagogue with Rachael that morning as his first real exposure to the religious experience, and of the questions that now bothered him.

“I’ve had a rough time the last few years, and I’m only now beginning to get a handle on things. I’ve run into a few people who go to church and they seem to be onto something that I’m not. But I know other people who don’t go to church and they’re doing OK too. I feel sort of drawn to this” – Charlie waved at the interior of the church, – “but I don’t really know why. I look up at those paintings and I can see that Yeshua – I mean Jesus – had a bad time of it, and I wonder, if he was a god or something, why did he take it in the shorts like that? And if he was a god, why do all of the really crappy things that happen in the world still happen? I can say crappy around here, can’t I?”

“Yes. You can say ‘shitty’ if you want to” Father Krempke replied. “You just asked enough good questions to produce a couple dozen books with good answers, and some of them I don’t have a good answer to. Let me try to give you a thumbnail, even a drive-by, answer to some of them if you will.

You pointed out that you know good and decent people who are believers and others who are not. How can that be? I mean, if you’re not one of God’s flock you must be a total jerk, right? Well, it’s not all that easy, and it’s not easy to explain either. Let me put it this way. God has created all of us. All of this” – Father Krempke’s arm swept from his right to his left – “and he created it to be good. We have a problem, though, that God calls sin, and that problem separates us from him but it doesn’t change who made us and how we were made to be. That goodness can still shine out, regardless of a person’s religious belief or lack thereof. Some of the nastiest people I know are religious while some atheists put a lot of effort and love into their community. Remember, the people who killed Jesus were the religious leaders of his time.

“I don’t really know much about all of that, but I’ll take your word for it.”

“You really are new to this! Well, anyway, God has said to us that he was interested in your heart, not in your credentials, and he preferred a helping hand offered to a neighbor more than the sacrifice of a thousand bulls. Don’t get too tangled up in that sacrifice thing; that comes in Theology 1.02. If you have unbelieving friends who are extending love to you, just know that their love is coming from God Himself, and he’s crediting that love from your friends to them as righteousness.”

“So” Charlie said, picking up on that thread. “You’re saying that the God you’re talking about cares about us, even if we don’t know anything about him?”

“No, I didn’t say that at all, but I’m sure that I would have gotten around to it eventually. What I was saying is that Jesus – God With Us – died for all of us. He didn’t go through all of that” – Father Krempke again swept his arm, this time at the paintings of the stations of the cross – “just because it was the next step in the Big Plan. He did it because he loves all of his creation. There’s a verse in Romans, a book that a very smart Jew wrote to Jewish and non-Jewish believers in Rome. ‘God demonstrated his love for us in this: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’ So God loves us all, and all of us, to one degree or another, reflect that love back into the world. God pays attention to that.”

“But then why does he let all of this awful stuff happen in the world?” Charlie asked. “Why did my friends get so badly damaged in their wars? Why did my boss’ husband die of cancer? Why – – -,” Charlie choked back a surge of emotion that was tinged with anger. “Why did my daughter die?”

Father Krempke sat silent for a moment. At last he said “Charlie, in the first place I’m sorry for your loss. I truly am. We priests don’t get to have daughters, so I won’t pretend to know how that hurt feels. But I’ve buried enough sons and daughters to know that the hurt is deep and the anger is natural. Again, I’m sorry.

As to why those things happened, I won’t try to give you a facile argument, because I frankly don’t know why they happened. Humans just seem to love wars and they love to send their young men to fight in them. The world is bent, if not fully broken. I can assure you that God does not like the idea of war. And disease was not God’s plan either. He made the world perfect. It got bent, as I said, and I won’t go into the ‘how’ about it right now. It just did and now God’s working on straightening it out. That’s why he did what he did” – the priest pointed at the paintings of Jesus on his journey to the cross and then to the grave. “That was the only way that God could sort this mess out.

Finally, I don’t know why your daughter died, but it was not because God wanted it. Like I said, he is straightening this mess out but it isn’t finished getting fixed just yet. Until it does get fixed, these sad things will continue to happen. But he IS working on it and paid a pretty high price to get things in motion. When he gets this all sorted out it will make sense in the end. Until that happens, we just have to live by faith. But know this; God loved – no loves – your daughter, and wants the very best for her. Her death was not because God was angry with her, that I can assure you.”

“So you think that Stevie might be in heaven?”

“Hmm. That’s above my pay grade. Let me try to wriggle off of that hook by saying that it is very possible that she is. I told you earlier that I believe that people who show God’s love, whether they know that he is the source of it or not, have that credited to them as righteousness. How that plays out in the end, I don’t know. The Bible is an operator’s manual, not an exhaustive schematic. But I do know that God doesn’t want anyone to die an eternal death. Not one person. He’s not some sort of cosmic spoil sport who creates people just so that he can cook them. There’s other scripture that says God wants all people to live, but I don’t want to overwhelm you with that.”

“But you ARE saying that Stevie MIGHT be in heaven” Charlie persisted.

Father Krempke sighed and said “Yes, I guess that is what I am saying, but it’s so much more complicated than that; so much nuance. But I will say to you again that the answer is ‘yes’, I believe that she might be in heaven.”

“The sheep and the goats thing, right?” Charlie asked.

“Yes, exactly. So you do know something about all this.”

“Very little. A Jewish Christian told me about that, but I don’t really know the context or anything.”

“Well, bless his or her heart. Look, God is gracious and loving. God made a lot of people who couldn’t possibly know anything about Abraham or Moses or Jesus and his ministry. Native Americans who fished for salmon in the Columbia River right here three or four thousand years ago, for instance. How could they know how to pray the sinner’s prayer and punch their ticket into heaven? Unless you believe that God created those people, people that the Word of God clearly says that he loves, specifically to go from birth to barbecue, and I emphatically DON’T believe that, then you have to believe that there’s more to the story than what we generally know. That smart Jew that I mentioned earlier? He wrote about that issue too.”

“Well, if we can get into heaven just by being good, why do all of this?” and it was Charlie’s turn to sweep his arm from right to left through the sanctuary. “Why worry about all the rules and restrictions?”

“I never said anything about rules and restrictions, and I don’t believe God said much about them either. He said ‘Love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.’ It was actually a little more poetic than that, but that’s what he said. Love God because God is good and deserves to be loved, and love your neighbor in the same way that God loves you, or as near to that as you can get. That’s about it. We men have laid a lot of other stuff on top of that, but that’s really what God said. He gave us a lot of suggestions about how we can make a better life, but that one commandment was the one that he said he really wanted from us.

And faith means a lot to God. Doing good things is certainly valuable to him, to your neighbor and even to you, but trying to run up a score as if you have the power to work your way into heaven isn’t the whole trick. Doing this because you have faith in God is really what he wants, but this is a lot to pack into a first conversation.”

Charlie was beginning to think the same thing. That morning with Rachael he had been introduced to the awe and mystery that a people had felt for thousands of years for a God who they had never seen, but who’s presence they had felt through their few victories and their long and murderous list of persecutions. Now he was listening to this priest tell him of a God who knows him and loves him personally, and who loves Stevie and Walt and Jack, and everyone else that he knew and cared about on a personal level. It was a lot to think about, and Charlie felt like it was time to go and do that.”

Charlie rose from the pew and asked Father Krempke if they could talk again. “Of course” the Father had replied. “I live here. I look forward to seeing you any time that you like, as long as I’m not baptizing a baby or something.” Charlie smiled at that and then walked out into the sunlight of the Vancouver afternoon.

His truck was only a couple of blocks away and soon he was in it and driving east. At first he didn’t know where he was going but it soon became clear as he drove closer to the cemetery where Stevie lay resting. He entered the lot in front of the cemetery office and parked the truck. A lot of bodies had been added to this place in the last two and a half years, but Charlie walked straight to a spot that he knew he could never forget.

There it stood, the granite marker that announced the final resting place of Stephanie Allison Hamer, August 7, 1995 – June 12, 2015. Charlie walked slowly up to the marker and knelt down in front of it. He stayed there silently for a long time, he had no idea how long. At last he began to speak.

“Hi Stevie” he said. “It’s been a long time. I guess I would normally ask somebody how they’ve been doing, but it seems a little misplaced here, with you being dead and all. But on second thought, maybe you aren’t really dead. That’s a new thought, and it’s taking some getting used to. I think that I like it though. I could sort of get used to it. I’ll let you know how it works out.

I’m doing fine, I think. I’m back in the saddle as far as work goes, but it’s not the most important thing in my life any more. I think it was people, and not work that saved my life. Well, actually, some really cool people are telling me that it was God sending those people into my life that have saved my life. I never really thought about God much before. Well, to be more truthful, I never thought about God at all. I’m thinking about him now though. I think that maybe you’ve even met him. Funny, talking about God as a him. God would have to be pretty big to be creating all of this stuff and keeping it going. Like, does he – it – have a body? I dunno. You might know, but I don’t.

Anyway, your mother seems to be doing OK. I saw her last week and she looks good. She’s still a beautiful woman, really. She’s where you got your beauty from, in case you didn’t know. She’s got a boyfriend. You know, that sounds really weird. Unless the guy’s like seventeen or something, why would I call him a boyfriend? Anyway, she does, and she says that he’s a good man. We’re talking again and I hope that we can always be friends. I think we can.

I’m seeing a woman too. I guess I have to call her a girlfriend. I suppose it’s only fair. But she really is a woman, and a beautiful one. I know that you would like her.

Stevie – – -. Stevie, some people that I know have suggested that you aren’t really dead, that you are alive and in a place called heaven. I don’’t know about that but I feel the greatest possible comfort knowing that it is at least a possibility. I mean, a year ago I didn’t even believe that heaven exists. Now, I believe that it is possible. How? I don’t know. A very nice guy just told me today that some knowledge was above his pay grade. I guess that knowledge is above mine. I mean, it’s possible that this is all a bunch of crap and I’m kneeling here talking to a piece of rock in the middle of a big lawn.

But maybe not. Maybe you are alive and can hear me and are the happiest that you could possibly be, and maybe I’ll be with you someday, just as happy as you are and never to be without you again. Maybe you had to have that accident and die so that I could figure that out. I like that thought. For now, I think that I’ll hang onto it and see how far I can go with it.

“Say ‘Hi’ to Yeshua for me. That’s what a Jewish friend of mine calls Jesus, but I guess you might already know about that. I’ll be seeing you when my time rolls around.

Charlie was sitting in the fourth row in the auditorium, two rows in front of Maureen and Jack and five seats to their left. He had arrived early and waited impatiently in front of Loolooska High School in Gresham, on the Oregon side of the river, watching as proud mothers and fathers and bored siblings accompanied a herd of boys and girls who were wearing suits and dresses. No doubt, those children would provide the afternoon’s entertainment. Charlie had continually scanned the incoming crowd, wondering how he would react when he saw his ex wife and son, and how they would react when they saw him. At last, as teachers began to lead a number of the younger students backstage, and parents and other family members began to file into the building in order to find their seats, the familiar faces of Jack and Maureen appeared at the side of the auditorium, walking toward him.

Charlie’s heart skipped a beat or two when he saw them. Jack was taller than his mother, and probably almost as tall as Charlie. He walked with a confident air, almost a swagger, and his face projected a nonchalance that suggested that this was a day just like any other. Maureen walked by his side and, once she saw Charlie, locked her face into an expressionless mask. Jack, once he made eye contact, allowed something that looked like a smirk to play across his face.

“Oh, God in heaven” Charlie thought. “This is the biggest fucking mistake of my life.” He felt an urge to turn around and run, not walk, away from this place, but he thought of D’Andra, LuAnn, Billy and Rachael, who had all supported his decision to proceed with the project.

And also about Carolyn. “You don’t seem to be yourself tonight” She had told him after he met with her at four o’clock the previous Wednesday. “Is everything alright?”

They had retired to an Indian restaurant after concluding their business, which consisted of a medium-sized and somewhat decrepit strip mall that was for sale at a very good price. Carolyn had made an offer which, if accepted, would give her the equity necessary to secure a loan that would allow for the old and worn half of of the mall to be torn down and replaced and the rest renovated, with the whole of it potentially turning into a very comfortable income property.

Carolyn’s instincts were acute, as usual, and Charlie’s experience filled in the gaps here and there and allowed Carolyn the comfort of confidently making what she could consider a very good deal. They were now celebrating the potential acquisition that could make her very well off, if all things went according to plan, and provide a project which, along with the apartment remodel, could keep Charlie’s new crew busy for the rest of summer and fall.

“Well, not really” Charlie answered. “It’s beginning to sink in that I’m going to be seeing my son and ex wife in five days. The prospect of that stirs up memories and poses ‘what if’s’ that I sort of wish I didn’t have to think about.”

Carolyn thought about that, shifting gears from her business and it’s potential triumph and focusing her attention on Charlie. “Oh, I forgot about that. I imagine it’s a very hard thing to prepare for. There’s nothing that I know of that I can say to give you comfort about this, so I’ll just say that I am in your corner. I hope that this turns out well for you.”

“Thank you” Charlie replied. “That means a lot. I’m more nervous and confused than I thought I’d be. I really don’t know what in the world is about to happen, or how it will affect my life.”

“Well, I hope that it results in you getting close to your son. That’s the point, isn’t it?”

“Yes” Charlie agreed. “That’s the point. That’s the ‘main thing’ as one friend described it. But it’s become more complicated, maybe.”

“More complicated?” Carolyn asked. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that this process, which was intended to put me back into a relationship with Jack, will by necessity put me into some sort of contact with my ex wife.”

Carolyn waited for Charlie to elaborate, which he did not do. She pushed a piece of eggplant around in a pile of savory rice until she decided that he wasn’t going to complete his thought. “So, Charlie, what’s the matter with being in contact with your ex wife?”

It was Charlie’s turn to push a piece of chicken around in the few vegetables that remained on his plate. “Maybe I should just lay it out for her to see the whole picture” he thought, but then he thought “No, are you crazy? You might trash a very productive partnership! But what about your heart, fool? You’ve bullshit yourself your entire life. Why don’t you be real for a change? Because ‘real’ can blow shit up like an atomic bomb! Can’t you ever leave well enough frikkin’ alone?”

The battle raged in Charlie’s mind and the effort of it played on his face. Carolyn put down her fork and sat silently, waiting for whatever was to come from the struggle going on in Charlie’s agitated mind. At last he put down his own fork, drained the Vietnamese Tiger Beer, and looked directly into Carolyn’s eyes.

“I’m dealing with the possibility that Maureen might want to return into marriage with me, for Jack’s sake, of course.”

Carolyn’s face didn’t change; not one iota. Or did it? If anything, it set a little more rigidly, but that could just be his imagination. After a moment she spoke.

“That would be good, wouldn’t it Charlie? I mean, putting a family back together is usually thought to be good.”

“Yeah, that’s what they say” he replied. “And that’s what I would do, if it came to that. For Jack’s sake, at least.”

Silence fell again. Charlie fidgeted with his empty beer bottle and Carolyn caught the waiter’s eye. With hand signals she called for refills of their drinks.

“For Jack’s sake” she echoed. “Yes, Jack is the point of all of this, isn’t he?”

“Yes” Charlie replied. “He is, and that’s what makes this wonderful and what makes it hard, too.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“I mean, it’s wonderful because I set out to do this thing and, against a whole lot of odds, it looks like it’s about to happen; about to start, anyway. Of course, I have no idea how it will progress beyond this Sunday, or if it will progress at all, for that matter, but I’ve learned that I’ll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it.”

Charlie stopped talking when the waiter brought their drinks, and then began to fidget with the new full bottle of beer rather than continue his train of thought. After a short period of silence Carolyn took the initiative to get the conversation rolling again. “And what about the hard part?” she asked. “As if any of it hasn’t been hard.”

Charlie stopped picking at the label and put the bottle down on the table. He drew a little cleansing breath and the looked again directly at Carolyn.

“I was given some good advice when I began this project” he said to her. “‘What’ll I say to him, or to Maureen, if I even get in touch with them?’ I asked some people. I believe that you were one of those people. ‘Tell them the truth’ was the good advice that those people gave me. I have tried to take that advice so far and will continue to do so. Now, I’m going to continue that policy with you. I hope that this doesn’t damage our relationship, but telling any less than the truth wouldn’t enhance it, so here goes.

I would be wise to renew my marriage with Maureen if that extremely unlikely opportunity should ever present, for all of the obvious reasons. It would be very painful for me to do that however for the single reason that I feel myself becoming more and more attracted to you.”

Charlie felt his face turning red at this point, but he pressed on. “I feel sort of like a seventeen year old kid just now. Forgive me if I’m stumbling a little about this, but it’s hard for me to feel like I’m saying it correctly. I don’t want to let ambiguity be the guiding principle however. I don’t know how you feel about this, or me for that matter, but I can’t pretend that what I feel isn’t real and I won’t lie about it. I hope that our relationship can grow to more than it is now, but at the same time I also hope that if that’s not possible, then it won’t change to become something less.

But a renewal of my marriage to Maureen, which I repeat is highly unlikely under any circumstance but which I would nevertheless do, and do with a whole heart for the sake of my son, would end even the possibility that I might further develop a relationship with you, if such a thing is possible, and that thought is very hard for me to deal with.

So there it is; the plain truth. I know, it’s not very romantic. I’ve daydreamed about telling you this in a manner something more like Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, but I’m afraid that’s just about the best that I can do.”

Charlie sat back in the booth, picked up his beer and took a long drink, trying to lubricate his throat which had suddenly become as parched as sand. Carolyn said nothing. Charlie felt like fidgeting with his beer bottle again but fought the urge. Carolyn raised her glass to her own lips and took a sip of her drink. At last Charlie couldn’t restrain himself any longer and began to pick at the label of his beer. Carolyn reached over the table and gently removed the bottle from his hands and set it down. Charlie looked up over the bottle at Carolyn as she began to speak.

“Charlie, that’s the most romantic thing that I’ve ever heard.” He looked confused, and she then continued. “You just told me that you care about me and want to have a relationship with me, but your love for your son and sense of duty to him could force you to possibly give up a chance for that to happen. Oh, my God! You’ve told me that you have feelings for me, and only the power of a man’s love for his son can prevent you from hoping to see what those feelings for me could grow into; that you would give up your hope of happiness with me only for the love of your son. Charlie, a girl could live a couple of lifetimes and never hear such an expression from such a good man as you are! Cary Grant never said anything like that to Grace Kelly, and I know this for a fact. I’ve seen every movie that either one of them made and I never heard anything like that.

Charlie, I have been developing feelings for you as well, and that is something that surprises me very much. I could not imagine somebody taking the place of my husband. In fact, the thought is still difficult to comprehend. But I will put those feelings that I have for you on hold indefinitely, and I don’t foresee any change in our current relationship – business or friendly – as this situation develops. Your faithfulness to your son is the most important thing here, and I will support that with a whole heart.”

Disappointment, desire, relief, and hope all danced an intricate minuet on Charlie’s face as he tried to digest what Carolyn had just told him, but while his face was busy, his mind struggled to put two coherent thoughts together. Carolyn, at last, took pity on him. She reached back across the table, took Charlie’s hand, and gently wrapped his fingers around the bottle of beer. “Here” she said. “Drink this before it gets warm, and let’s talk more about a schedule for the project in Orchards.

Charlie sat in his auditorium seat, thinking alternately of Carolyn’s comments and what he might say to Jack after the recital. That event had progressed from young children playing pieces barely more advanced than ‘Chopsticks’ to a very simple version of Für Elise. Jack, being one of the two or three most advanced students, would be performing at or near the end of the recital, which gave Charlie time to let his thoughts drift from Carolyn to other things.

He reflected that Maureen had not exuded one bit of warmth when she and Jack walked up to Charlie in front of the auditorium. “Hello, Maureen” he had said to her. “It’s good to see you again.” And then he turned to Jack and observed “You’re as tall as your mother! It’s really good to see you again, too.”

Jack had said nothing in reply. Maureen merely said “It will start soon. We have seats already. You had probably better get one before the good ones are gone.”

She and Jack then turned and walked into the building, and Charlie was left standing under the sun to decide if he would follow them in or simply walk back to his truck. The truck lost that debate, but only by the barest of margins, and now he was in his seat close to the stage. He had no idea where Maureen and Jack were sitting at the time and did not immediately look around to find out. Almost by accident he had noticed that they were not far away.

Charlie eventually found that he was enjoying the music as it got more advanced, and he began to think more about that than of his tangled and tentative relations with Jack and Maureen and, well, life in general. Billy had introduced him to Chopin, and now he was listening to music at night that had been composed by a variety of people. Chopin, Mozart, and Beethoven he had heard of before, but Borodin, Lizst, Enesco and others had created music that was healing to Charlie’s soul. The music that he was beginning to hear this day was progressing in complexity, and Charlie gave it more and more of his attention.

At a point half way through the recital an intermission was scheduled. After it was announced from the stage, people began to rise and head towards restrooms and a concession area in the lobby of the auditorium. Charlie looked towards Jack and Maureen’s seats and found them to be empty. Feeling like he could use a cup of coffee, he left his seat and joined the throng. “I could use a shot of Billy’s whisky more” Charlie thought, “but coffee will have to do for now.”

The line for coffee was not long and soon Charlie had a cup in his hand. The coffee was free, with only a donation requested. He sipped the coffee and decided quickly that the cost was an accurate reflection of the quality, and he stepped outside in order to find someplace where he could discreetly dump it on the ground. To his surprise, he came face to face with Maureen.

They both stopped dead in their tracks, neither one speaking a word. Seconds passed, and Charlie decided that this whole affair was not going well, and that it would have to change or he would withdraw from it altogether. “This coffee is awful” he finally said lamely. “There’s not much that I can’t drink, but this fits right into the middle of that category.”

He turned to empty his cup on the ground by some bushes. “If she’s gone when I turn back around, I’m walking to the truck and getting the hell out of here” he thought. He took longer to pour out his coffee than was necessary, and then he turned back around. Maureen was still standing there. Charlie drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, and then stepped back in front of his ex wife.

“Maureen” he said. “I’ll not pretend that this isn’t awkward, well, actually more than awkward, for all of us. I admit, I thought about saying how nice it was to see you, how good you look, or ask how you’ve been doing, blah blah blah. You know, all of that small talk stuff. I guess I did that a little when I mentioned how tall Jack has become. You probably already knew that Jack is growing and didn’t need my observations to confirm that fact, so that was a little bit stupid and predictable.

Well, what I really want to say, to you at least, is that my intentions are exactly what I said they are. I am not here to pry into your life; of either of your lives, for that matter. I just want to find out if there’s some way that I can still be a father to Jack. If this is going to cause pain or problems to you – either of you – just tell me and I will drive away right now.”

Maureen was silent as she digested what Charlie had said to her. At last her face softened, or so it seemed to Charlie, and she replied. “Charlie, I’m sorry that you didn’t get a better reception from me. I can’t speak for Jack, but it hurt more seeing you than I thought it would. I don’t know how he felt; he’s been a little bit of a closed door to me for some time now. I think that it’s hard for him too however. We cried a lot together before he began to draw away from me, so I think it must have been hard for him today too.”

Charlie thought about Billy’s metaphor of putting fingers into bleeding arteries. Here was one standing in front of him, and he wondered what to do. How could he put pressure over the wound? It occurred to him suddenly that he was not there as a medic; the metaphor only went so far. He couldn’t fix everything, so he just had to plow ahead and do the best that he could.

“We’ve all been through hell” Charlie began, “and I wish that I had a magic wand that I could use to fix things up. I’m all out of magic wands though. I’ve just barely held myself together until last spring, when things started to get turned around for me. I don’t really know what I’m doing or even how I’ll do it. IF I get a chance to do it. But I feel strongly that I have a duty to fulfill towards Jack, and that by doing that duty I might generate some health for both of us. Maybe for all of us, actually.”

“Maybe so” Maureen replied. “I came to believe something like that might be possible, or I wouldn’t have agreed to this. But I’m being cautions, I don’t know you anymore. Not really. We’ve been apart for two years, and more than two years if we want to be honest. Perhaps you are a different person now. It seems to me like you might be, but even so, who is that different person? The last one messed me up pretty good, so I’ll not be too quick to get entangled with the new version.”

“That makes sense” Charlie said. “It hurts like hell, but it makes sense. You are wise to approach this in such a way. I’ll do my best to be as open and honest about who I am as I can, but for now we probably had better return to the recital. I don’t want to be stepping on some proud parent’s toes when their Johnny or Susie is playing ‘Moon River.’” Maureen smiled at that and agreed.”

“Where is Jack, anyway?” Charlie asked as they reentered the building.

“He went backstage” she replied. “He calls it ‘putting his game face on.’ He’s serious about his music and gets into some kind of a zone when he plays. I think it’s the place where he goes to get away from things.”

“Oh, I never even picked up a program!” Charlie said. “Is he playing last?”

“Next to last” Maureen answered. “There’s a girl who he competes with who’s last today. They battle for last place – which is first place really – at every recital that they both attend, and it’s about a fifty-fifty proposition. She’s really good, and gives him a run for his money.”

‘What’s he playing today?”

“It’s called a nocturne.”

“Nocturne?” Charlie asked. “By Chopin?”

“Yes” Maureen answered. “I’m surprised that you know of him.”

“Yeah, I’ve been listening to some music lately. My roommate is quite a fan. Do you know which Nocturne?”

“Not really. I’ve got a program here though.” Maureen unfolded a single sheet of paper that she had stowed in her purse and looked on the back. “It’s Number 2”

“Opus 9” Charlie added.

“Yes” Maureen replied, clearly astonished by Charlie’s familiarity with the music. “How did you know – – -, well, we had better get back to our seats” she said.

Charlie returned to his seat feeling much better about the way that things were progressing. Maureen had opened up and allowed civil conversation. That was probably enough for one visit by itself. Now it was a matter of waiting for the recital to be finished and then beginning the process with Jack. Charlie sat back in his chair and let the music play through his head, simply enjoying the increasingly advanced pieces, mistakes and all. “I wonder what that girl will play” Charlie thought.

That girl played ‘Malagueña,’ a piece of music composed by a Cuban pianist, and it was of sufficient complexity that it deserved to be played last. The young woman performed flawlessly and everyone, including Jack, rose to their feet to give her a standing ovation when she struck the concluding chords with authority. Charlie made contact with Maureen’s eyes and signaled that he would meet them outside. He then shuffled along at the speed of the herd of parents, performers and their siblings, and finally found Jack and Maureen waiting outside.

“That was amazing, Jack” Charlie said as he walked up to them. “I haven’t heard that piece played better. You really nailed it.”

“Yeah, I’ve been listening to a little” he replied, overlooking the snark in Jack’s voice. “Hey, let’s go and get some food. Did you say The Iguana Feliz?” Charlie asked Maureen.

“Yes, it’s just down Grandison, about seven or eight blocks and on the right.”

“I know where it is. I’ll see you all there in a few minutes, OK?”

They agreed to that and Charlie walked to his truck. He fired it up and drove it slowly out of the parking lot, inching it along in order to avoid running over any of the little people who were prone to dash about once released from the agony of having to listen to brothers or sisters and others play the piano on a perfectly beautiful Northwest day. He waited for a break in the traffic and bolted into a left turn onto Grandison, through a gap that was smaller than safety would normally allow. He was anxious to get to the restaurant and let the process begin. Soon he was parked and walking into the front door of the restaurant. The place was crowded but, to his surprise, Jack and Maureen already had a booth.

“I can’t believe that you beat me here” Charlie said as he walked up to them. “You must have let Jack drive.”

The quip fell flat. “I’m fourteen, Charlie. I don’t drive yet.”

Charlie was set back by Jack’s remark. He had meant it as a harmless joke, and he didn’t particularly like being called by his first name by his son. “Pick the battles that count” he told himself, “if you have to pick any battles at all.”

“I know, son. It’s just a joke.” He slid onto the bench seat next to Maureen. He was here to connect with Jack, if that was ppossible, so he wanted to face him. “So, what’s good here?”

Jack was silent, and Maureen spoke to fill the awkward silence. “Jack likes the carnitas tacos.”

“What do you like? Charlie asked of Maureen.

“I’m fond of the fish tacos” she replied.

“So, can I order those things for you two?” Charlie asked, looking first at Jack, then at Maureen. Jack shrugged his shoulders, which Charlie took to be at least a ‘why not,’ and Maureen nodded her assent.

The waitress came to take their orders and Charlie said “Tres tacos de carnitas para el joven, dos de pescado para la señora, y para mi chili verde.” The waitress was obviously pleased to hear the Anglo ordering their meal in her native tongue. Charlie ordered the drinks and she swished away through to crowd to place their order.

“I didn’t know that you spoke Spanish” Maureen said.

“Yeah, a little. I worked with a lot of Hispanic construction teams and learned enough to get by.

“That was pretty awesome” Jack said. I’d like to learn some Spanish. Maybe next year.

“I find it to be useful, even a little bit fun” Charlie replied. “And getting back to what we were talking about at the recital, that was a very good job on that nocturne. I’ve listened to most of them; Chopin’s Nocturnes, I mean. I downloaded a set performed by Brigitte Engerer. You heard of her?” Jack shock his head. “She was a Tunisian born French pianist, and I love the touch that she has with Chopin. You know, that girl rocked Malagueña, but the touch that you displayed in Number 2 was every bit as deft as the passion that she expressed through her piece. I’m really impressed.”

“Wow!” Jack said, and this time without a bit of snark in his voice. “When DID you start liking music?”

“I’ve always liked music” Charlie lied, and then he remembered his friends’ advice that he be nothing but truthful with Jack and Maureen. “But I’ve come to appreciate it a lot more lately, since I moved in with my roommate. I was always the big shot contractor, but now I have time to cultivate a taste for other things. Billy turned me on to classical music and I’m really enjoying it. Did you know that Chopin was Polish, but that he didn’t have a country?”

Jack was beginning to warm up to the thread of the conversation, while Maureen sat in her corner of the booth with surprise all over her face.

“What do you mean he didn’t have a country? He was Polish.

“Yes, there were Polish people but there wasn’t a Poland then. It had been divided up between Russia, Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A lot of Poles fought for Napoleon, hoping that he would restore Poland, but he didn’t do it. While the Poles were out in their own wilderness, their musicians, writers and poets spoke, played and sang to the heart of the people. Chopin was one of the greatest of these.”

“That’s awesome, Dad!” Jack said, and then continued the conversation. “Napoleon screwed a lot of people over. Beethoven wrote his Third Symphony in honor of him, but changed his mind about it before it was finished. I don’t know why.”

“Me neither, but maybe it was because Beethoven was German, and the Germans were one of the people who were sticking it to the Poles.”

“Naw” Jack replied. “There wasn’t really a Germany yet, and Beethoven was from one of the western German states while Prussia was in the east, although he did die in Vienna, so maybe it was an Austrian thing.”

“You know, you may be right about that. The Austrians turned on Napoleon first chance that they got.”

“So, Jack asked. “How come you know all of this stuff? This doesn’t have much to do with building houses and collecting rents.”

“You’re right. Music is not at all like building houses and collecting rents. But I don’t do as much of that as I used to, although I still am busy in the trades. I’ve just found that there’s value in slowing down and enjoying some of the other things of life. Besides, my roommate is pretty smart and knows a lot about this stuff.”

“Who’s your roommate?” Jack asked. “Is she pretty?”

Charlie could see Maureen’s face redden at that moment, but he spoke quickly to defuse any possible reaction from her. “HE’s really not pretty at all. Well, I guess he’s kind of cute, in a G.I. Joe sort of way. I guess you’d have to ask a woman about that. He’s a veteran that I met through another friend. He was wounded in Iraq and is getting ready to go back to school. He’s one of the smartest guys I know.”

“He was in Iraq? Cool! I bet he has some crazy stories to tell. I think maybe I want to join the Army when I’m eighteen. Or maybe the Marines.”

Charlie thought for a moment about Walt and Billy, and about the bombs and machine guns and prisoners with most of their heads eaten away. He thought about their trip to the forest to try and see some elk that nearly turned into a gun battle between a game warden and two damaged soldiers. Charlie wanted to shout “Are you crazy?” Instead, he said “He has stories to tell, but he is not very quick to tell them. Maybe it would be good for you to hear some of them sometimes, so that you have a more clear picture of what the military can be about. Military service is honorable, but there’s a cost. Maybe some time, if your mother approves of course,” he nodded at Maureen, “I can introduce you to Billy. Whether he tells you any stories or not, I can’t predict.”

“That would be awesome, Dad” Jack said. “So, do you have a girlfriend?”

The question caught Charlie almost flat-footed. “Who taught you to be so direct?” he asked his son with a laugh.

“You did” Jack replied. “You never know when everything’s going to go to pot, so I don’t have time for B.S.”

“Touché” Charlie said. “And ‘NO,’ I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“A boyfriend?”

Maureen turned bright red this time, but Charlie laughed out loud. “No, pipsqueak” he said with a big grin. This was like talking with the guys at the Smelly Socks. “I don’t have a boyfriend. Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you have a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend, for that matter. I’m not judging.”

“No to both, but I’ve got the serious hots for Maria.”

“Maria?”

“The girl who played the last piece” Maureen interjected, trying to become a part of the conversation.

“Ah, I’ll bet that she knows that. It explains the passion in her playing. She was showing off and telling you how she feels. Well, you’re going to fall flat as a pancake if you try to woo her with your morose Nocturne.”

“Opposites attract” Jack replied. “And besides, I have a little ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ in me.”

The food arrived at this time and banter and serious talk about music and girlfriends and wounded veterans was spaced around bites of the quite delicious food. After they were finished eating Jack announced that he was going to walk home, as they lived not far from the restaurant. Jack rose out of his seat and Charlie got up too.

“Jack” Charlie began. “It’s been really good to see you. If you are OK with it, I would like to stay in touch with you and your mother. I’ll be going fishing with Blly when his schooling permits, and if you’d like to speak with him I’m sure that he could tell you a lot about being in the Army, although once again, he may not share too many stories about his actual service.”

“Yeah, that would be cool, Dad. You know, you’re all right. I didn’t think you would be, but you are.”

Charlie nearly choked on that. He could feel his eyes beginning to fill and had to take a moment to make sure that his voice didn’t waver on him. “I’ve been learning how to hug people and I would like to give you one. If that’s too weird for you, a handshake would be fine.”

Jack extended his hand. Charlie grasped it and, to his surprise, Jack pulled him into an embrace. “It’s cool, Dad. People do hug.” After a long embrace, Jack stepped back, said “See ya,” and walked out the door. Charlie watched him leave and then turned to Maureen. He sat in Jack’s seat so that he could face her.

“Well, I didn’t believe that it would work out that well” he said.

“Nor I” Maureen agreed. “He’s not been that open for a while. I know the music thing really spoke to him.”

“I hoped that it would. I learned a lot from my roommate, about music and a lot of other things. He really is a pretty smart guy.”

“Well, I hope that you discourage this Army thing that he brought up. I don’t need to see my son march off to a war.”

“Don’t worry. That’s the last thing that I want. Believe me, Billy will say nothing to make it look glamorous. He got torn up pretty badly, and in some ways he still is.”

“Well, that’s good. I mean that he won’t encourage Jack, not about him being torn up. We can talk about future contact later. I have to get going now myself. Oh, but there’s something else that I want to bring up before I go.”

“Yes?” he asked. “What is that?”

“Uh, well, I am fine with you and Jack getting connected. I really am. And I can see that you are changed. You seem to be in a better place than I’ve seen you in a long time.” She laughed at that. “Not that I’ve seen you in a long time.” Then she became serious again.

“Charlie, I want you to know up front that I am not interested in resuming much of a relationship with you. I’m just beginning to get my own head together and I am in a relationship with another person. That was hard to do, because I could only see you for a long time. I finally began to see Carl for who he is, and I think I am on my way back to happy. So, if you had any such ideas, I want you to know clearly that I am not interested in that. I can see that you are a good person but I’ve moved on, and I intend to keep it that way.”

Charlie was so happy to hear that that he could have reached across the table and kissed Maureen. “I’m really glad for you, Maureen” he said. “I admit that the thought of you with somebody else gives me a flutter or two in my gut, although I have no right to feel that. I assure you that there’ll be no interference from me. I’m real busy trying to rebuild my own life, and I’m happy to hear that you’re doing so too. Between us, I hope that we can still provide a family for Jack, even if it’s a separated one.”

“So do I, Charlie, and I want you to know that I’ll always have a warm spot in my heart for you, even if it didn’t look very much like it when we saw you earlier.”

“Don’t worry about that” Charlie replied. “It was hard for all of us, but it was worth it.” Charlie looked at his watch and said “I guess I should be going too. I have some things to attend to on the other side of the river. Maureen, it has been really good to see you again, and that’s not just some lame social convention. I wish – – -, no. I’ll not go there. It’s just good to see you again. Let’s stay in touch. Does Jack have a phone? If he wants, we can exchange numbers.

Maureen and Charlie rose from the booth and he walked with her to her car. When she unlocked the door Charlie extended his hand to her. “I think a handshake is the best goodbye for now. Holding you, even for a moment, might be too painful, for me at least.”

“I believe that you’re right” Maureen replied. She took Charlie’s hand and shook it. “Goodbye for now, Charlie Hamer. It has been a pleasure to see you again. Until the next time, as circumstances permit.”

Charlie said “I would like that,” and let go of her hand. He watched Maureen drive out of the lot, and an old ache welled up in his heart. He really had loved that woman, even if he did a lousy job of showing it, and failed miserably when the bad times came. The thought of her with another man was hard to take, but that triggered thoughts of his own incipient relationship with Carolyn. Maureen had obviously progressed in her new life further than Charlie had. That was a shortcoming that he intended to address immediately.

Charlie climbed into the cab of his truck and pulled out his phone. He found Carolyn’s number and punched it. “Hello” came her voice after three rings.

“Hello, Carolyn” Charlie answered.

“Oh, Hi Charlie. Well, how did it go?” she asked. Clearly, she had been thinking about his meeting with Jack and Maureen.

“Pretty good” Charlie replied. “I’d love to discuss it with you. How about dinner tonight at Rory’s?”

“Rory’s? It must have gone really well. Or really badly!”

“No, it was good. I can’t wait to tell you about it, and there’s a lot more that I want to tell you, too.”

“Ummm, interesting. Six o’clock?”

“If you must, but I was thinking about five.”

“He’s anxious! This just keeps getting better. I’ll call and make a reservation for five o’clock. Oh, I forgot, my Rory’s dress is at the cleaner’s.”

“I’d be proud to go there with you wearing sweats. Carolyn, I – – -, well, I’ll tell you at Rory’s.

“I thought that I was going to die right then and there” Charlie said. “Those guys have hair triggers. I really didn’t realize how bad they have it.” Jason chuckled softly around a mouthful of hash brown potatoes while LuAnn shook her head and clucked her disapproval.

“You’ve come back too far and you’re too close to seeing your boy to be fooling around with such things” Lu Ann told him. “Those men are dangerous, Charlie Hamer. Don’t you go getting yourself killed just because you feel sorry for them.”

“It’s not that I feel sorry for them, LuAnn” Charlie replied. “They’re my friends. They stood with me when I was pretty deep in a hole. I just didn’t really understand how deep their own hole is. They’re always going to be my friends; at least, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll just have to understand that situations where they’re involved can get out of hand and try to be as helpful and supportive as I can, if and when they do.”

“That sounds like the best talk that I ever heard about such things” Jason said as he put down his fork with a sausage link impaled on it. “You got no idea what it can be like for us vets coming back from those hellholes. Well, I guess you sorta got and idea, Charlie, with the trouble that you’ve been through, but most people don’t. I suppose my folks tried, best as they knew how to help me, but usually I just pissed them off and didn’t even know how or why I did it. That’s why I went to live mostly outside. Auntie Lu here was the only one who just accepted me and didn’t try to fix me.”

“Auntie Lu?” Charlie interrupted.

“Yeah. We didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but you’re pretty much like family now. Anyway, Aunt Lu and Uncle Duane, God rest his soul, let me stay in a room off the back of their garage whenever I wanted a roof. They never even offered me so much as a cup of coffee, but that’s ‘cuz I told ‘em that I wasn’t going to sponge off of them so don’t offer it. At first I didn’t think they could do it, but they did.”

“But you accepted breakfast here” Charlie said. “I’m not meaning to be argumentative, but how was that different?”

Well, Leroy wasn’t kin to me. I worked some in the kitchen, as much as I could anyway, to pay for it. And I still do when I’m not at work at the hospital. Nobody was keeping records, but I’ll know when the bill’s paid up.”

“Now, you know that there ain’t no bill” LuAnn said. “Not that you’ll listen to me anyway. Well, I guess I’d better go earn my pay. You boys’ll have to do without me for a spell.” LuAnn walked away and began to minister to her customers’ needs, leaving Charlie and Jason alone at their table.

“So, you didn’t come home with any wounds, did you?” Charlie asked. “Physical ones, I mean.”

“No” Jason said. “And that’s the funniest thing. Guys were getting zapped left and right of me, but I never got touched. I could hear the bullets going past my head. You ever heard one?” Charlie shook his head in the negative. “Well” Jason continued, “they make the nastiest damned sound, sort of whistles and wobbles as it goes over your head or past your ear. No ricochets, no ‘POW’, none of that Hollywood shit.

Well Anyway, guys got taken out with mortars, IEDs, small arms, you name it, but not me. By the end of my tour guys would want to be with me ‘cuz they figured I’m lucky, but it didn’t do ‘em no good. They’d get stitched up the middle or whatever and I’d be right next to ‘em and not get a scratch.”

“Sounds to me like you really were lucky” Charlie said. “That’s a lot of nasty lead and explosives that was playing around out there. Shoot, I’m surprised that anyone can go through, what is it, a year?”

“I was there two years.”

“OK, two years. That makes you even luckier.”

“Yeah, I suppose it does. Don’t get me wrong; I’m much happier about coming home in one piece than I would be about coming home in several. Still, I can’t forget those guys who weren’t any worse or any better than me, and they got their heads shot off or went home on a stretcher or in a wheelchair. I mean, sometimes I actually feel bad that I never got a Purple Heart. It’s like I was shirking or something, but I wasn’t.

There’s nights when I wake up sweating, and I know that I’ve been rolling and kicking on the bed ‘cuz the blankets are all kicked off on the floor. Usually it’s because I’ve been having the same dream: I’m in a firefight and I take one somewhere. Usually it’s in the gut, but it can hit me just about anywhere. Anyway, I know that it’s a bad one and that I’m going to die, and you know what? I’m glad. In those dreams I’m glad I finally got hit like my buddies did. I’m finally one of them; I’ve earned their respect. I’ve sorta earned my own self-respect.

Then I wake up and realize I’m home and still in one piece, so I would go live outside and make my way partly on the street. You know, it’s dangerous out there. You can get yourself hurt out there just as easy as you can in Iraq or Afghanistan. I think I was trying to pick up my Purple Heart out on the streets. At least, that’s what the VA counselor thinks, and I think he’s probably right.”

“So your counseling is helping you with all that?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah” Jason replied. “I’m going more regularly now. He’s a pretty sharp cookie and he’s right a lot of the time. Some of the other guys are hard for me to be around though. I mean, they’re so down that it’s like they project some sort of bad gravity. It’s weird, but seeing them I figured that I’m not such a basket case after all, and it got easier to live with my shit.”

“Well, I’m glad you did, Jason” Charlie said. “My counselor has helped more than I ever thought she could. Man, there’s just no easy way to get your head straightened out once it gets jacked up by something, is there? And speaking of my counselor, it’s time for me to pay up and go see her. You take care, Jason, and congratulations on doing so well at your job and getting a handle on your issues.”

Charlie put some money on the table and pushed his chair back. He knew by now what his favorite breakfast would cost and left that plus a generous tip next to his plate. He waved to LuAnn as he walked to the door and then he stepped out into the brilliant sunshine of a late summer day. In ten minutes he was seated in his usual place on the love seat in D’Andra’s cottage, with Salome turning and kneading in his lap, preparing for a nap in what had become one of her favorite spots.

D’Andra emerged from the kitchen with a cup of her delicious coffee and placed it on the table by Charlie’s elbow. “This morning I’m trying my hand at croissants. I’ve never made them before, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

“We’ll know in about 15 minutes” D’Andra said with her warm smile. “Shall we get started?” Charlie agreed to that as D’Andra sat into her large chair close to him.

“So tell me about your camping trip. How did that go?”

Charlie recounted the trip with Walt and Billy, sparing no details except for toning down Walt’s story of Bertie’s torture at the hands of the Viet Cong, and his ending of the horribly disfigured soldier’s misery during the battle.

“Well, that’s pretty frightening!” D’andra exclaimed. “I’m glad that it worked out with nobody getting hurt.”

“Yeah, I am too. Especially me! I just didn’t know how deeply those guys were wounded by their experiences. It made me feel like a baby for falling apart over my problems, which seem so much less than theirs.”

D’Andra took a sip of her tea and said “Um.” She thought for a moment and then continued with “There’s a couple of things I would like to discuss about that Charlie. To begin with, I don’t believe that your trauma was any less than theirs. What I mean is, you were no less shocked and impacted by your circumstances than your friends were by theirs. I hope that you don’t feel like your troubles should somehow be considered insignificant, because they surely were not.”

“No” Charlie agreed. “I suppose that they weren’t. But Walt and Billy saw so much of that stuff while they were overseas. I can’t even imagine what they must have gone through. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“And how many of their daughters did they see die over there? How many of their children did they have to bury?” D’andra asked. “How many of them had mature families fall apart while they were unable to organize a straight thought from one minute to the next? Now, I’m not trying to minimize their pain, but I hope you can see that you do nobody any good by minimizing your own.”

Charlie thought about that for a minute and then decided that, once again, D’Andra was right. “OK” he said. “I see your point. I’ll try to be easier on myself.”

“Good” D’Andra said. “You deserve it. Now, there’s another point that I would like to discuss, and that was your response during the confrontation.”

“My response was that I nearly crapped in my underwear, and then I chewed out my two best friends.”

D’Andra laughed and took a sip of her tea. “I would have crapped my own underwear if I would have been there” she said, and laughed once again. Charlie laughed too, took a sip of his coffee and scratched a purring Salome behind her ear. “But there’s more to it than that” D’Andra continued.

“I think you would have to say that you were in a very stressful situation and you were making analyses, connecting dots, and managing a situation that could have left people killed or injured. You got everyone home alive and well that day. I believe that shows an ability to see a problem from the outside when you are very much on the inside of it. Your handling of the situation, at least as nearly as I can tell by what you shared with me of it, indicates to me that you were the most rational person there, and I believe that says a lot about how your mind is healing from your long hurt.”

A timer went off in the kitchen and D’Andra said “Hold that thought” as she arose and went to inspect her new creation. Charlie was glued to his spot by a very comfortable cat and so D’Andra had to conduct her inspection alone, although he was very curious about her success. D’andra returned momentarily with a down look on her face.

“Well” she said. “The people who wrote the recipe warned me to not be discouraged if I failed on my first try. Would you care for some dough that is well baked but has little else to recommend it?”

Charlie was still full from his recent breakfast but agreed to try D’Andra’s failed experiment. He always left just a little room in his stomach when he came to D’Andra’s cottage. She went back into the kitchen and quickly returned with what looked to him like two very reasonable facsimiles of a croissant, with a small dish of butter and another with a lingonberry jelly. “They look fine to me” he told her.

“You’re a very kind person, Charlie, but you’re an awful liar” D’Andra replied.

“No, I’m serious” Charlie said. He smeared a little butter and jelly on one of the slightly flattened pastries and took a bite. The dough was, in fact, cooked, but it lacked the lightness of a true croissant. “OK. I guess they’re not perfect, but they’re still pretty good.”

“Go ahead” she told him. “Get all of that B.S. out of your system now. We’ll tell only the truth for the rest of your hour.”

“All right” he said. “So maybe they do need a little work. They still taste pretty good to me though, and you’re not going to get me to back down on that.”

“Fair enough” she said with a chuckle. “So let’s get back to business. As I was saying, you handled that situation well. Sure, you were scared. Who wouldn’t be scared? But you thought your way through it and responded appropriately. I think that says a lot about where you are at now.”

“Well, I wish I could say that I had it all under control, but I mostly pulled it out of my rear.”

“All the better, as I see it. You weren’t reading a script. You had to think and act under pressure to avert something very bad from happening, and you did just that, when all’s said and done.”

“Yeah, I guess I sort of did. Huh! I didn’t think of it like that.”

“And this brings me to your next face-off with a different game warden, so to speak.”

“You mean this Sunday, I think.”

“Yes, exactly. You are going to be going into that meeting with exactly as much preparation for what could happen as you had last weekend up in the mountains. What is Maureen going to say to you?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Was that a real question?”

“Yes, Charlie. I’m serious here. What is she going to say to you, and how is she going to react when she sees you? Will she be civil? Will she be hostile? Will she be interested in your life? Or will she care if you live at all?”

“Well heck, I don’t know. We didn’t seem to hate each other when we separated, although I came to believe that she did as time passed. How would I know what to expect?”

“That’s exactly my point Charlie. The situation is the same as it was in the forest with your two friends and the game warden. You didn’t see any of that coming but you thought it out, and quickly, I might add, and you managed a very touchy situation. I know that your meeting with Maureen and Jack could be difficult. Not that it WILL be difficult, but it certainly COULD be. But you were the cool head where traumatized men with big handguns were about to shoot or be shot. Don’t you think that you might be able to handle this situation just as well?”

“Jeez, I don’t know. Yeah, I suppose, maybe. It is different though, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it certainly is” D’Andra agreed. “Just like what happened last weekend was different from anything else that you’ve ever done. I’m not saying that the same response, or any other rehearsed response, is going to work some sort of miracles next Sunday. I’m only pointing out that you’ve shown the ability to keep some level of your cool under the most stressful conditions. I don’t know how you’ll act next Sunday and I can’t tell you what to say or what to expect. I can only remind you that you did as good a job in that forest of directing events away from a bad ending as any I’ve ever heard of, and I have no good reason to believe that you are likely to lose any of those skills in the next five days.”

Charlie sat back in the love seat to think about that while D’Andra got up and went into the kitchen. She made another small pot of coffee and puttered with things for a few minutes, allowing Charlie time to process what she had told him. When she returned she handed him a fresh cup of coffee and took his empty cup back into the kitchen. Charlie knew that she was giving him time to think, and he made the best of it that he could. After a few minutes she returned to her chair.

“So Charlie” she began. “How is your new job status working out?”

Charlie spent the next few minutes telling her about how much he now enjoyed working. “I’ll soon be renovating an apartment building that I built nearly fifteen years ago” he said. “My boss, Carolyn, is busy every day scouting for new properties to buy, fix up, and turn. She has a wonderful business sense, and I fill in the actual construction angle. We make a pretty good team, if I do say so myself. I’ve sort of inherited a crew, and I’m calling people I used to know in order to keep them busy. I’d like keep them together if I can. Carolyn’s also looking for raw land so that she can build from the ground up. I’ve told her that I’ll help her to navigate any parts of that that seem tricky to her; I used to do it a lot a few years back.”

That sounds wonderful, Charlie. I can see by the light that shines through your eyes when you talk about it that you really love your work. It’s a very good thing when they pay you to do what you want to do anyway.”And it sounds like you are getting on very well with your boss. Have you had any trouble reporting to somebody instead of being at the top of the heap?

“Carolyn’s almost not like a boss” Charlie began and his eyes lit up a bit brighter. “She’s as smart as can be, but also very kind. She’s already demonstrated that she’ll give a down-and-out sucker a break – which is what she did for me – but she won’t stand for anything underhanded. Yes, I like working for her just fine.”

D’Andra sat silently, nodding her head a little as if listening to some far-off music. Charlie didn’t know exactly how to interpret the silence, and began searching for something that she was perhaps waiting to hear. At last he said “I think that we might be starting to build a relationship. I like her very much, and I think she has sent signals that she feels the same way. No, I know that she’s sent those signals. I’m just not sure what to do next.”

D’Andra was surprised by that, and Charlie thought “She must have been silent for some other reason. Oh well, I’ve opened that up, so let’s dive in.”

“Well, Charlie. That is a nice surprise” she said. “I wish you well in this.” She sat silent for a moment longer and then continued. “How does that affect your thoughts about seeing Maureen?”

Charlie wasn’t at all surprised by the question, since he had been asking himself that all week. “I think it helps, sort of. I mean, I never had any intention of trying to renew my relationship with Maureen, but the thought of sitting face-to-face with a woman who I once loved, and maybe still do in some fashion, who now might wish that I would lay down and die, really puts a brick in my gut. I think this gives me a little confidence as I go into the meeting.”

“So reconciliation with Maureen is definitely off of the table?”

“Well, uh, yes, I think so. I mean, we separated and then divorced and all. It’s not like I don’t sometimes think about what we did – I mean, I did – wrong, and how we might never have come to where we are if I had done this or that thing differently. And yes, sometimes I daydream about being back there and re-doing things, and how it could now be with us still together. But the truth is that I just don’t see anything like that happening.”

“And what if that turns out to be what she wants, Charlie? What if her present coolness warms up when she sees that the man she once loved, who is the father of her son, is now trying to see the world more clearly and is more attuned to the needs of others, including her son? What if, at some point in the process, she tells you, one way or the other, that she wants to put your family back together?”

“You think that I should do that?” Charlie asked.

“It’s not for me to think that you should do one thing or the other” she replied. “But it is my job to point out that this could happen in order to prepare you for that possibility.”

“Hmmm” Charlie mused. “I’ll have to think about that. I mean, it’s one thing to build daydream scenarios in my mind and another to deal with the possibility that they could happen. I suppose that, for Jack’s sake if for no other reason, I would do what I had to do.”

“Now remember, I’m not suggesting that any such thing will happen. I’m only warning you that it could so that you can take some time and think about the possibility and how you can react in such a case to create the greatest happiness for yourself while discharging your responsibilities to your son and ex wife. I don’t know where the intersection of those two things lies, or that if anything like that is even remotely likely to happen. I only want to suggest that you should begin thinking about it before you meet with them this Sunday. That way you won’t be completely flat-footed when that, or anything else that’s completely unexpected, comes your way.”

“Well, I wish you success, however it goes. I would love to continue this with you but I’m afraid that I must prepare for another client. Charlie, you have shown that you can operate during a crunch. You are getting your mind and heart on the same page and are facing your life with clarity and confidence that warms the heart of this counselor. I don’t have any doubt that you will be kind and thoughtful this Sunday. I will be praying for you and look forward to seeing you next Wednesday.”

She rose up out of her chair and Charlie, taking his cue, moved Salome off of his lap and arose as well. D’andre walked with him to the door and, standing there with the sun pouring in through the open door, gave him a big, warm hug. Charlie was beginning to get the hang of this new hugging thing and returned her embrace gladly.

Walking towards his truck, Charlie remembered previous times that he’d walked down the concrete path; times when he was afraid of what was coming next or uncomfortable with what had just happened. Today he simply felt like he was prepared for whatever might come his way this day and the week to come. It felt good, and Charlie was thankful for it.

He drove to the remodel projects that were rapidly being concluded. The unfinished driveway had already been poured and was curing. Lester had the crew spread out among the three houses and had all of the close to completion.

“You going to keep us busy next week?” he asked Charlie. “Or am I going to have to look for work?”

“I’ve got an apartment building that needs a facelift; nothing big that I know of but it’ll keep you together until I get something bigger. I’ve got friends with backlogs and Carolyn may find out today about a couple of remodels in Fruit Valley and maybe some new construction in Felida. I’m going over to her house when I leave here. Now, let’s see what’s to be done around here that needs the master’s touch.”

Charlie only stayed for an hour. Everything that needed to be done could be done by the crew, and they didn’t need to be tripping over Charlie. At last he unstrapped his tool belt and said goodbye to Lester and Frank. “They’reprobably glad to get me out of their hair” he thought.

He drove to Carolyn’s house but she wasn’t home. “Dang” he thought. “I should have called.” He fired up his truck and thought “What now?” In no time at all the image of his garden entered his mind. It had been three days since he had last been there, and he knew that it would need to be watered. Weeds were no longer much of a problem, so it shouldn’t take long to do what needed to be done. To his surprise, Rachael was there already.

“Isn’t it a little early for you?” he shouted as he went through the chain link gate into the garden area.

“Speak for yourself” Rachael shouted back. “Aren’t you supposed to be building the Empire State Building or something?”

“Supposed to” he replied. “But I’m so good that now they just build themselves when I tell ‘em to.”

“I’m sure that they do” Rachael said with a laugh. “Just leave this garden open, if it’s not too much to ask. We need one space in Vancouver without a building on it.”

“Ohhhh, it’s the evil contractor now! Let’s make this a politics-free zone, OK?” Rachael laughed again and threw dirt clod at his feet, making sure that she missed by a wide margin.

Charlie fell to his work, and using a bucket to water only the hills in which his plants were growing he had the twenty by twenty foot plot watered in less than a half hour. He returned to the truck and brought back several plastic grocery bags which he proceeded to fill with squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, tomatillos, peppers and green beans. He brought his bounty under the canopy and sat down in the shade. Pulling out his phone, he called Carolyn. She answered on the second ring.

“Hi Charlie” she said, and without allowing him to say anything she asked “Are you going to be free in an hour?”

“I’m free right now” he answered. “Do you need something?”

“Not right now, but I have something that I need your help with at four. It’s bigger than anything that I have ever done, but it looks like a good deal – no, make that a great deal – if I have it figured right. Can you meet me at the corner of Walston and 148th over near Orchards?”

“I’ll be there” Charlie said, and hung up. He sat in his chair, staring off into the distance and wondering what big deal Carolyn might be working on. She was an ambitious person, he thought, who intended to make it in the world on her own terms. Charlie saw a little of his old self in her; the drive, the focus on the goal, the way she efficiently cut away what wasn’t working to her advantage.

“I don’t know if I entirely like that” Charlie said to himself. “That didn’t work out so well for me.”

“What did you say?” Rachael asked, and Charlie jumped half out of his chair. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you saw me coming.”

Charlie clutched at his chest and looked up at the sky, or at least at the canopy above his head, and said “Here I come, Elizabeth. It’s the big one!”

“Rachael sat down and said “I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. You were really engrossed in something, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess I was. I have quite a few things on my plate to chew on and it’s got me using brain cells that haven’t had much exercise lately.”

“I hope it’s good stuff” Rachael said.

“Mostly it is” Charlie replied.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rachael said, and then followed that with “Oh, I’m sorry again! Sometimes it’s hard to leave work behind. Your business is your business.”

“Thanks for that” Charlie said. “But now that I think of it, I think I might like to hear your thoughts on something I’ve been thinking about. Not as a counselor, but as a friend.”

“OK” Rachael said. “Shoot.”

“Here goes” he began, but held up his hand and said “One moment though. I can’t afford to get lost in this.” He pulled out his phone and set the time to go off in forty minutes. “There. I don’t want to keep my boss waiting. OK. So, I’m seeing my son and ex wife this Sunday. I think I’ve told you that earlier.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Well, D’Andra has me thinking of something that hadn’t occurred to me before, not seriously, anyway, which is what if Maureen wants to reconcile and renew our family? I don’t think that there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that such a thing could ever happen, and I don’t even know if I want any such thing to happen. But what if it does?”

Rachael digested that for a minute and then asked Charlie “Would that be such a bad thing?”

It was Charlie’s turn to be silent and think. At length he said “Yes and No. I’ll start with the ‘No.’ Maureen is a good person; a good woman. We have many good memories together, more than we have bad ones. We have a son, and it’s likely that he would do better having two parents at home. No, I could do a lot worse than to finish my life with Maureen.”

Charlie waited another moment, then took in a deep breath and exhaled. “And then there’s the ‘Yes.’ There’s more good than bad between us, but that bad is one big mother. We were split before by it and I wonder, am I really so different now? Am I really that much stronger now? Would it just rise up out of its grave in time and bite us again, and this time even harder? You know, that bear’s sleeping; I’m not so sure that I want to poke him.”

Rachael thought about what he had said and prepared to speak, but Charlie cut her off by continuing. “And then there’s Carolyn.”

“What about Carolyn?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that we have the start of a relationship going on. At least, I’ve found that I’m attracted to her and I think she’s pretty openly returned signals that she feels the same. Renewing relations with Maureen would require switching gears that would be painful to imagine. Of course, there’s no evidence at all; AT ALL, that Maureen is interested in any such thing. And when you stop to think about it, I might have just been imagining that Carolyn feels like I think that she does. Really, right now I don’t know my butt from a hole in the ground, and I’m just trying to figure things out.”

They sat silently together under the canopy, both lost in thought. The traffic on Garland Boulevard two blocks away from the garden made a muffled rumble of background noise but it was strangely serene inside the chain link fence. Bees and other pollinators buzzed and flitted from flower to flower, sometimes passing close enough to be heard. A hawk that was nesting in the fir tree in a neighboring yard flew by, possibly carrying some unlucky squirrel or rabbit to its chicks.

Charlie noticed the movement and thought about the lack of disruption to the garden by the rabbits that were so prevalent in the city. No doubt the presence of a hawk that was looking to provide for it’s hungry family was responsible for the absence of bunny depredations here. Rachael at last broke the silence.

“Charlie, I’m not going to give you advice. I’m going to tell you what I feel in my gut, but I don’t expect for your to do anything just because I say so.”

Rachael fell silent again, thinking of how to express her thoughts. Charlie waited patiently for her to continue, and at last she spoke again.

“Reconciliation is at the heart of my faith. Now remember, I’m not preaching to you. This is what I think about your situation and it is grounded in my worldview; my plausibility framework, whatever you want to call it. I believe that the world was created perfectly and then it got screwed up. You can literally believe in an Adam and an Eve or you can believe that they are a myth or a metaphor. Either way, things got thrown out of whack and God has been putting things back together ever since; been reconciling a broken world with Himself. How that plays out from one situation to another I don’t really know, but I have to believe that if reconciliation with your wife is possible, and the restoration of your family could be realized, then that is the path that God would want for you to take.

Now, I’m not saying that you should do that. ‘Should’ isn’t a part of this. I’m not throwing my Bible at you. God loves you and Maureen and Jack and, what’s her name? Carolyn? OK. God loves you all and will love you no matter how this works out. And I believe that God will show you the right and best course to take when the time comes. Not that you have to take that course or lightening bolts will fall out of the sky and cook you up like a burnt french fry. He’ll just show you the right decision to make. Then it’s up to you.”

“But what if I don’t believe in your god. Why would he care one way or the other what I do? And if there is a god, where was he when my Stevie was drowning?”

“He cares because he created you. He loves His creation. Did your daughter always do what you wanted?” Charlie shook his head in the negative. “And did you stop loving her because of that?” Charlie shook his head again.

“And even if you don’t believe in God, I’m willing to bet that you hope there’s a heaven and that your daughter is there. Even after her death you still love your daughter and want the best for her. Do you think a good God who created you loves you any less?”

“Do you think Stevie’s in heaven?” Charlie asked. “I mean, if there is such a place? We never went to church or anything.”

“I don’t know, but I think its very likely that she is.”

“But what about all of the rules? We never followed any of them that I know of.”

“How do you know if you did or didn’t? And besides, it’s not really about a bunch of rules that for the most part people have made up for themselves. You know, ’I don’t smoke and I don’t chew and I don’t go with girls that do.’ There’s a story about sheep and goats that might help you, but I’m not teaching Sunday School here. I’m just telling you what I think, and that is that God loves you and everyone involved in your situation and will lead you to what is best if you will pay attention, and that reconciliation is at the center of His heart.”

They fell silent again and this time the silence lasted until the chimes announced that it was time to go and meet with Carolyn. Charlie pressed the button that shut off the alarm, and then they both stood up. Charlie felt like he was picking up an extra hundred pounds, and Rachael could see that he was weighted down by new concerns.

She put a hand on his shoulder and said “Remember Charlie, that the focus here is on Jack. You began this by realizing that you want to be reconciled with him. All of the other stuff can come later, but he’s the focus right now. Maybe that’s a little of my professional angle leaking into this, but that boy needs not just a father but a Dad, and I think you need him too. Keep your eye on the ball, Charlie. Keep the main thing the main thing, and worry about the rest later.”

She gave Charlie his second hug of the day, and Charlie clung to her embrace as if he was holding onto hope. At last they separated. Charlie leaned over and picked up his sacks of vegetables. “Would you pray for me?” he asked.

Charlie didn’t feel ready to start looking for Maureen yet, but his mother’s advice to do so won the day. He didn’t know yet what he would say, or how he would even say ‘hello.’ But first things first. At the moment he had no idea where Maureen was. He knew where her parents lived however, or at least where they had lived two years earlier, and that was less than a mile from his mother’s house. He knew that his best hope was to start there.

Charlie remembered their phone number, for what reason he couldn’t say. Butterflies were doing barrel rolls in his stomach as his fingers punched the numbers into his mother’s land line telephone. He almost held his breath as the phone on the other end began to ring, but he made a conscious effort to steady himself for the moment when somebody picked up his call. That effort paid off, and Charlie was reasonably calm by the time he realized that nobody was going to answer. Sure enough, a voice came on saying “You have reached 821-0733. Nobody is available at this time to answer your call. Please leave a message at the beep and we will return your call as soon as we can.”

Charlie debated for a moment whether or not to leave a message. If he did so, he would hot have the flexibility of a live call in which to make his case. Perhaps his call would be unwelcome but not immediately rejected, and his speaking to a live human on the other end would give him a chance to make a case for continuing the conversation that might otherwise be lost. On the other hand, he was now anxious to begin the process, and delay was more distasteful to him than maneuvering for advantage with a possibly reluctant ex-in law was attractive, and so he took the plunge.

“Hello. This is Charlie Hamer. I am in town visiting my family, and if it is at all possible I would like to speak with you while I am here. I know that this comes as a surprise to you, but I hope very much that you will agree to a phone call or a visit. The phone number at my mother’s house is 227-4413, and my cell is 360-415-4253. There is not a voice recorder on my mother’s phone, but I do have one on my cell. I hope that I will be able to speak with you soon. Good bye.”

“There, it’s done” Charlie thought. “They will answer or they won’t. It’s out of my hands now.” He placed the telephone receiver in its cradle and walked down the hall and into the living room, where his mother waited.

“They weren’t home, I guess,” he told her. “That is, if that is even still their number. A lot of things can happen in two years.”

“I’ll bet that they’re still there,” Elaine said. “Our generation didn’t move around like yours does. I think they’ll get the message. It’s what they’ll do with it that’s the real question to me.”

“You’re probably right about that,” Charlie said. “I don’t really know what I would try next if they won’t talk to me. I suppose I could get in contact with her lawyer and try that angle, but I doubt that she would help. Some sort of professional rules or something like that.”

“We could try to find her on the internet,” Elane suggested. “Those snooper websites can find anybody. If you want to give them $7.95 after the first free month, that is.”

Charlie chuckled at that idea. “Mom! he said. “You surf the internet?”

“Why, sure!” she replied. “Why should you youngsters have all the fun? You can find just about anything you want to know on the Web.”

Charlie laughed outright at this response. He could still see his mother hanging clothes on a clothesline in the back yard, putting his school lunch into a paper sack and watching soap operas on their old Magnavox television in the summertime when he was out of school and home at that hour. Now, in her late seventies, she was instructing him on how to snoop on the internet, and for only &7.95 per month! “You can find anybody,” she continued to say, “plus their tax and police records too.”

They sat in the living room and visited for an hour more before Charlie began to get restless. His business was weighing on him, and he knew that only by discovering if Maureen’s parents were really still at that number and would answer his call could he remove that weight in its entirety. Having at least made his first attempt he felt some relief, but knowing that any moment they might call made this business so much more real now. At last, his mother noticed his fidgeting.

“Look, Charlie. Why don’t you go and do something? You’re nervous as a cat at the dog pound. You gave them my number, right?” Charlie nodded that he had. “OK then. I’ll stay here and answer if they call. I can say that you had to step out for a minute and that you’ll be right back. I would call you then and let you know.”

That sounded like a good idea, and Charlie decided to take a walk in his old neighborhood. He exited through the front door and began to walk north, towards southern rim of Mission Valley. Almost immediately he was in front of the house on the corner, where the Burtons had lived. “I wonder if they are still alive?” he thought. “I wonder what that little girl’s doing? I wonder if Mom could find them on the internet? I wonder why I can’t remember a thing like what Mom told me about them, and about Dad.?”

He walked on, burning up nervous energy, and soon saw the Henning’s house. In front of that house, on the side of a lawn that had now gone to seed, was the stump of the pine tree that he had climbed to find refuge from his troubles one day long ago. “Jeez, why can’t I remember that?” he asked himself. Charlie could remember climbing that tree many times, in spite of the Hennings always chasing him out when they caught him up there. Why couldn’t he remember that one traumatic day?

Charlie walked past Bobby Crowe’s old house and wondered what happened to him. “I remember plenty about him,” he thought. “I’d probably kick his punk ass if I could find him now.” Charlie was surprised at how the resentment that he had felt against his tormentor of four decades ago rose easily into his consciousness now that he stood here in front of the house where Bobby had once lived. “It would be a good idea to not have Mom find him!”

Charlie continued walking and soon came to the recreation center which still occupied a full block in the neighborhood. He went into the field where some kids were throwing a frisbee and sat on one of the concrete picnic tables that had replaced the old wooden ones from when he was young. He was sitting there, remembering times both good and bad, when the cell phone in his shirt pocket began to ring. He pulled it out of the pocket and looked at the screen. “PRENTISS” it said. Charlie’s heart leapt into his throat as he pushed the place on the screen that said “Accept This Call.”

“Hello,” Charlie said, and lamely, he thought.

“Hello,” came a voice. “Is this Charlie?”

“Yes sir, it is,” Charlie answered. “How are you doing?”

“Well, I suppose I’m doing well enough. Question is, how are you doing?”

“Pretty good, I think. And Mrs. Prentiss? How is she doing?”

“Same as always; an angel for putting up with me. I have to tell you that I’m very surprised to get this call. So I ask again, how are YOU doing? Is everything all right?”

“Yes, everything is fine sir. I’m visiting my mother and family here for a few days. I’m pretty busy up north but I wanted to come down here between projects.” Charlie hesitated for just a moment at this point, and then continued. “And, well, there is something in particular that I would like to discuss with you.”

Charlie paused for a moment, and Mr. Prentiss prompted him to continue.

“Well, this is the deal. As you know, I had a very hard time dealing with Stevie’s accident. I guess, really, that’s putting it too mildly. Anyway, I finally realized that I needed help, and now I’m getting that help from a professional. Because of that I’m getting back on my feet and I realize that even now, after all that has passed by me, there are still responsibilities that I have to my son and, who knows, maybe to your daughter as well. I’m not trying to pick up where we left off, if that is what you’re thinking. No, I’m trying to figure out what is the right thing to do in this situation and at this moment, and then finally do it.

Trouble is, I don’t really know what the right thing to do is. Now, I always respected you, sir. You always seemed to me to be the father who knew what to do. So I was hoping that maybe I could talk with you while I’m here and ask you to help me figure this out. If you would be willing to give me a few minutes, I would love to speak with you, and Mrs. Prentiss too, so that I can get a better idea of what helping would look like.”

After only a moment’s silence, Mr. Prentiss responded to Charlie’s request. “We would love to speak with you Charlie. Can you come over later on tonight?”

“You bet I can,” Charlie replied, knowing at the same time that Elaine had planned to have Clark and Emily and their families over for dinner that evening. But it was her idea to have Charlie fast-track the process of reconnecting with the Prentisses, so he was certain that she would understand if he missed dinner with them that night.

“The only thing is that we will be with our Care Group from church until eight o’clock. Can you come over at eight thirty?”

“Care Group? Do you go to church now?” Charlie asked.

“Oh, yeah. We started a couple of years ago, right after Steph – – -. Well, right after the tough part set in. It really didn’t have anything to do with your situation, but it was certainly in the nick of time. Anyway, we get together and eat some wonderful food that everyone brings pot luck and we’re usually done by nine. We could slip out and be home by eight thirty, if that would work.”

Charlie heard a murmur of conversation in the background and then Mr. Prentiss came back on the phone. “On second thought, I suppose that you already have your own plans for this evening. Why don’t we make it tomorrow morning for breakfast? Maudie is already looking in the kitchen to make sure we have the fixings for pancakes and ham and the other stuff that she remembers you like.”

Mr. Prentiss’ response to Charlie’s call had relaxed his concerns completely. He had feared that they would have considered him the author of their daughter’s misfortunes and shut the door in his face. To his pleasant surprise they still seemed to like him and were open to communication with him. Charlie wanted very much to press on with the main purpose of this visit to his home, but now he felt like there was space for him to connect with his own family as well.

“That sounds very good to me sir. What time would you like for me to come over?”

“Oh, you know, I’m an early riser, so anytime after seven is fine with me. Maudie usually has food on the table by seven thirty. Does that sound OK?”

“Seven thirty is fine. I’m an early riser too. I’ll be there on the dot.”

“You bet. Oh, and Charlie. It’s really been good to hear your voice. I’m looking forward to spending some time with you tomorrow.”

Charlie pressed the disconnect button and continued to sit at the picnic table, processing the conversation that he had just concluded. It was clear that Maureen’s parents did not harbor a grudge against him. They could have easily held him somehow responsible for Stevie’s death and their daughter’s family meltdown, and they could have made a case against him for not taking care of his family; their daughter and grandson, after the accident. But they did not seem to be inclined to do that.

Of course, this could be just a ruse; a friendly face designed to lure him to their house, where they could tear into him. It wasn’t too long ago that he would have given serious thought to that possibility. Today however, he was willing to accept Mr. Prentiss’ expression of good will as genuine and go to their house the next morning with hope for a good outcome. “Heck,” he thought. “Even if they do jump on me I can still try to do what I came for.”

Charlie sat at the table for a while longer, watching the frisbee throwers and some other kids shooting baskets in a court on the other side of the field. Charlie had done those things here when he was young, but he was never really a part of the group of regulars at the rec center. He had been too busy studying, delivering morning and evening paper routes, and working first as a laborer and then as a craftsman for a construction company in the summers, to spend much time playing.

The boys and girls his age would always be together, whether shooting baskets or playing wiffle ball or just sitting on the picnic tables smoking cigarettes. They knew about each other’s lives and acted like some kind of surrogate family to each other, and he had never sought nor was ever invited to be a part of that family.

Bobby Crowe had been a part of that group, and that was one good reason not to want to join it. Bobby had been a big kid for as long as Charlie had known him, and Charlie’s penchant for being more of a loner had tended to make him more of a target. He had never been actually beaten up by Bobby, but the taunts, the shoves, the trippings and so forth were always a direct invitation to greater violence, and it was a challenge that Charlie had no interest in accepting.

As the years went by, Charlie had come to this playground less as his other activities occupied more of his attention. The summers of intense physical work with the construction team had filled out Charlie’s previously thin frame and he had become quite muscular. Bobby Crowe, who came into contact with Charlie less and less anyway, was a punk but he wasn’t stupid. Well, not too stupid. Their brief encounters at school or in the neighborhood became much more neutral events than before. Charlie had thought from time to time about evening the score, but that seemed to be a pointless act compared with the more positive things in his life, and after he met Maureen there was no room in his mind for Bobby Crowe.

After a while Charlie’s mind returned to the present. He had family coming to his mother’s house soon and she did not know yet if Charlie would even be there. He punched her phone number into his cell and she answered on the first ring.

“Hey Mom,” he said. “Looks like I’m going to the Prentiss’ house tomorrow for breakfast so I’ll be home soon. What’s for dinner?”

“Oh, they called you on your phone!” she replied. “Tacos. So how did it go?”

“Better than I had hoped for. Mr. Prentiss sounded friendly, and I think that he meant it.”

“So, does Maureen live here? Is she going to be there too?”

“I don’t know, Mom. He didn’t mention Maureen, I think. Not much anyway, if he did at all. No, I don’t think that she’ll be there. We didn’t discuss a whole lot, which is OK by me. I don’t really like talking on the telephone anyway.”

“OK. I can take a hint. I’ll get off the phone. The kids are going to be over in about an hour, and we’ll be eating right away.”

Charlie laughed at his mother’s quip and said ‘good bye.’ Tacos. That called for beer and iced tea, depending upon one’s age and preference. He remembered that Moe’s Liquors once stood on the corner of First St. and Washington, but there wasn’t the smallest likelihood that it still existed. He had seen a small market on his walk, and he retraced his steps to that market and purchased two six packs of Coronas and a box of tea bags. These he carried the short distance back to his mother’s house.

Elaine was in the kitchen when he returned. He quickly put the beer into the refrigerator and placed a large pan of water on to make a pitcher of tea. He then busied himself helping his mother to cut, chop and cook all of the ingredients necessary for a taco feast. They were finished and Charlie had time to open a Corona and sit down before the first of the crowd arrived. Soon after that, the Hamer home was bursting with family, from Elaine down to the several grandchildren, the oldest of whom was pregnant with her first child.

Charlie and his brother and sister gave affectionate hugs, an occurrence which surprised them somewhat. Charlie was new to this hugging thing, and it would take some getting used to. Introductions were made to grandchildren and before too long the dining room was filled with the happy babble of a family enjoying a vast meal and a reservoir brimming with fondness and joy.

Perhaps the happiest person in the room was Juliette Hamer, the ‘earth muffin’ wife of Clark who had suggested to Charlie that he should get outside of his apartment and reconnect with the soil.

“That was good advice,” he had told her at a moment when his mouth was empty of taco. “In addition to growing some good and free food, I’ve met some people who have been a big help to me.”

“Who’s taking care of it while you’re loafing down here?” Emily asked.

“A very odd piece of work named Walt,” Charlie replied “He’s a crusty old Vietnam vet who you wouldn’t want you children to be around, yet he works his own plot and mine too while I’m gone so that he can give the food to the county food bank. I don’t think you would like him very much; not at first anyway, but he’s one of the best people that I know.”

“And just how many people DO you know?” Clark asked .

“Oh, let’s see.” Charlie began counting on his fingers. “I guess twelve people who I talk with much at all.”

Clark looked impressed with that number. “That’s a heck of an improvement over the last time we saw you up in Washington.”

“You have no idea,” Charlie told him. “Really, you don’t. There’s no way that you could.”

He then looked directly at Juliette. “And your advice came at the time when I needed it the most. A couple of my new friends are religious people, and they talk about blessings. Well, I haven’t had a lot of those the past few years but it looks like my luck is changing. Or maybe it isn’t luck. Anyway, it all started with your suggestion that I get into the dirt, and so I think that if anything or anyone has been blessing me lately, it’s you who’s leading the parade.”

The people sitting around the scratched old family table were silent for a moment, and then Clark raised his beer in preparation for a toast to Charlie’s rebirth into the ranks of the living. Charlie saw that move coming and waved it off.

“No, man. Don’t raise your beer to me. Raise it to that lovely woman you’re married to.” And with that Charlie lifted his beer in the direction of Juliette. Four beers, two iced teas, and a mix of sodas and glasses of milk were lifted in the direction of a surprised and embarrassed Juliette Hamer.

Clark leaned over and kissed his wife’s cheek before looking back at Charlie and saying softly “Bravo. Well done little brother. Can I toast you now?”

The toast was received and soon the room was once again filled with the happy chatter of family eating too much food and making up for too long of an absence. Elaine Hamer sat back in her chair from time to time and looked at her brood. This much joy had not visited her dining room, or any other part of her house, for a very long time. In fact, she was not sure if she had ever seen it there before. Several times she sat silent, not because she had nothing to say but because she feared that her voice would tremble if she dared to try and say it.

After dinner and the clean-up, which was performed by Clark and Charlie and the eldest son of Emily, the family spent some more time together before parting to return to their lives. Charlie talked with his mother for a short while longer and then retired to his room.

Lying on his old twin bed in the darkness he wondered how much of the life that he had lived in this house was locked away from his memory. He had not lain in this bed for – how many years? It had been a lot of them. Now he lay here after spending an evening with his family that was unlike any he could remember, and the glow of this evening accompanied him into a deep and untroubled sleep.

Charlie’s internal alarm clock went off well before seven thirty the next morning. Elaine continued to sleep and Charlie knew that a good meal awaited him at the Prentiss residence, so he dressed quickly and silently and began to walk the mile or so towards the Prentiss’ home.

Charlie had walked this path many times before, usually taking as long as possible to walk Maureen home from his house. He thought about those times while he strode down the sidewalk, not nostalgically glorifying them, but simply reflecting on how things were so much simpler then, and what he would do differently if he could replay those days again. He slowed his pace so that he could arrive on the front porch of the Prentiss’ at seven thirty, sharp, which is exactly what he did.

“Come in, son,” Mr. Prentiss said when he opened the front door. Charlie did as he was asked, and shook the hand that was extended to him. “We’re very glad to see you. Maudie!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Charlie’s here.”

“I’ll be out in a minute,” came a voice from the kitchen. “See if he wants some coffee.”

Charlie said that he would love some coffee and before Mr. Prentiss could move to get it Maude Prentiss came out of the kitchen with a steaming pot of coffee and three cups. She placed those items on the table and gave Charlie a long hug. This was more than Charlie had expected or hoped for, and he had to fight to keep his composure.

Warren Prentiss refused to talk business until after breakfast, and soon all three were busy packing away a small mountain of pancakes and ham and eggs and fruit. “I’m going to be big as a house if I keep this stuff up” Charlie thought as he wiped his fingers with a napkin and placed it on his empty plate. The Prentisses were also finished, and Warren Prentiss suggested that they clear the table later and get down to business in the living room. Maude and Charlie agreed and soon they were seated in comfortable chairs in that room that still looked nearly the same as Charlie remembered it. Without wasting any time, Charlie launched into the reason for his visit.

“Like I said yesterday, I’m trying to make some things right that I dropped the ball on when Stevie died. I can’t say that I know exactly what making things right looks like, but I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t look anything like the last few years of my life, so I’m asking other people, healthier people, for help in doing it.”

“Well, you look like you’re off to a good start,” Maude said. “I have to say that the picture of you that Maureen gave us was a whole lot different than what I am seeing now.”

“Maureen’s picture was probably pretty accurate,” Charlie replied. “It’s only been a couple of months since I began to climb up out of a dark place, and I’ve been very lucky to have met some good people who have helped me on my way.”

“I’m not sure that luck has anything to do with it,” Warren said. “But continue.”

“Well, I’m seeing a counselor. A professional. She’s really one of the smartest and most kind people who I’ve ever met. Anyway, she suggested that I try to get in contact with Maureen in order to find out if there was a way to be a father to Jack, given the circumstances. Another friend suggested that, without trying to write a fairy tale ending to my story, Maureen and I might have a need to help each other in some way to move on with our own separate lives.

I expect that Maureen is doing all right; she always was a stronger person through all of this than I was, but that’s basically what this visit is all about, and I wanted to get your advise and opinion on it. I would also like to ask you to find out for me if Maureen is interested in any of this.

Warren and Maude Prentiss were quiet for a minute after Charlie quit speaking. Warren seemed to be picking at a splinter in his though, wrinkled hand while Maude raised the now-cold cup of coffee to her lips and drained the last sip. They looked at each other quickly, and then Warren looked back at Charlie and answered him.

“Well, we spoke with Maureen last night and she said that she has no desire to see you.”

Charlie’s heart dropped into the soles of his feet. He had known that this was a possibility, but hearing it straight and direct was like getting hit in the chest by a truck. As he pondered what this refusal might mean to him Warren continued.

“We told her that you would be coming over here today and that we were going to share a meal with you. You had always been welcome in our house before and unless you gave us some reason to change that policy you would continue to be welcome here.

I also told her what you said yesterday about getting help with your troubles, and that you were interested in being a presence in Jack’s life it it seemed like he needed it. I’ll tell you now that I told her that I agreed with you on that idea. Anyway, she said ‘no.’ I asked her if she would keep an open mind about the idea, for now anyway, and allow me to speak with her again after we met with you and could make our own assessment of the sincerity of your intentions. She agreed to do that.”

Charlie was stunned by the frankness of Warren Prentiss. He had always been a very direct sort of person, but Charlie had forgotten how he could cut right through the clutter and get to the heart of a matter. As he reflected on this Warren continued to speak.

“Charlie, I’ve only spent an hour with you but I feel like you are on the right track. I didn’t see you when you and Maureen were going through the aftermath of Stephanie’s accident, but I trust my daughter’s account of things and I like the path that you seem to have chosen. Being smart enough to ask for help, even if it seems like you’re shutting the barn door after the horses have gotten out, is something that a lot of people won’t do, and it says a lot, to me at least, that you’re doing it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Charlie said. “It means a lot to me that you feel that way. I knew that Maureen might respond like that so it doesn’t really surprise me much. I’m very disappointed, but not surprised, I would appreciate it very much if you would just tell her that I am more sorry than I can express for how I wasn’t equipped to be there for her and Jack when I had the chance, and that my only intention now was to be a help if I could in any way.”

“Now hold your horses, Charlie,” Warren said. “I wasn’t quite finished. Maureen said that she has no desire to see you right now. She didn’t say anything about later, though. You’ve sort of dropped in out of the blue, you know, and it might take a while for the idea of you being alive again to sink in.”

“Being alive again,” Charlie thought. “Yeah, that pretty much describes it. Or maybe even being fully alive for the first time.”

“I told her that you would come over here and that I would see what I thought about you, and that I would speak to here again after I do that and tell her what I think. Well, I’m going to do what I said I would do, and I’m going to tell her that I think you’re making an honest attempt to “do the right thing” as you say, even if you don’t know what that right thing is. I’ll also tell her that I believe she should at least speak with you and give you a chance.”

Charlie’s thoughts were flying in at least a dozen different directions and it was hard for him to think, and he told Warren of that. “I’m feeling kinda tongue-tied, Dad” he said, relapsing to the title that he had used long ago when addressing Maureen’s father. “I appreciate what you’ve just said. God knows I can’t thank you enough for that. On some level I can’t even believe that I’m sitting here and that you’re talking to me at all, while on another I’m not surprised that Maureen might slam the door and close out this part of both of our lives. It’s exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. I will tell you one thing though, and you can share this with Maureen if you think it’s wise to do so.

This is the last time that I will bother her. If she does not want to speak with me after your next contact with her, I won’t make a pest out of myself. There’ll be no stalking ex-husband or any of that stuff. If she wants this to end once and for all time; if she’s got her life going in a good direction and does not need me being a distraction to hold her back, it will end right here. If she wants anything else, whatever that might be, I will be eager to pursue it. Your word, sir will be the final word for me.”

Warren and Maude sat still and quiet after Charlie quit speaking, and the three of them sat motionless and in their own thoughts for what seemed like an eternity. What Maureen’s parents might be thinking Charlie had no idea, and he wasn’t trying to guess. His own thoughts were of Jack and Maureen; what he owed to Jack, at least, and to himself. He thought of D’Andra and her wise, kind listening and advice. He also thought of Billy, who knew a wound when he saw one and what to do with it. Finally he decided that his business here was finished, and that any further lingering would be an imposition and an intrusion.

“Well, sir. Ma’am. I think it’s probably time for me to go. I thank you for the breakfast,” he looked directly at Maude. “You know that I always thought you cooked the best meals in San Diego. I also thank you for your kindness towards me. I couldn’t complain if it had turned out otherwise. And I thank you for your willingness to speak to Maureen in behalf of my attempt to help Jack, and maybe her and even myself too. Please let her know that I only want the best for them both, even if that means that I disappear again forever.”

Warren was not able to say anything in return. He extended his hand and pulled Charlie into a bear hug. When he let go Maude took her turn, and she found her voice.”

Charlie, like we’ve already told you, you will always be welcome in this house. When you get home, call us from time to time, or write to us even. We don’t do any of that fancy electronic stuff. Let us know how you’re getting on, and how we can pray for you. No matter how this all works out, we will always be your friends, and you can always consider this your second home.”

With that, Maude gave Charlie a hug and then let him go. His eyes lingered on this amazing couple for a few moments longer before he nodded to each and turned toward the door. Without looking back, for fear that he would begin to cry like a baby, he stepped through the door and out into the warmth of a San Diego summer day.

Charlie had no idea how long he walked before he finally returned to his mother’s house. He remembered walking along Park Boulevard, past the museums and art gallery in Balboa Park, over the high bridge that had the unfortunate name of ‘suicide bridge’ when he was young because of the many people who had found it a convenient place to put an end to their earthly troubles. He remembered his own appointment with the middle of a bridge, and as he looked down at the traffic flowing under him far below he thought about how foreign that thought now seemed to him.

He turned at Cedar and walked the long, straight street back to his mother’s home. She was sitting in her chair, pretending to have been reading, while Charlie knew that she had been gazing out the window, waiting for him. He said hello and went to the refrigerator to get one of the last two beers that remained from the night before. He opened the brew and sat down on the sofa opposite where his mother sat waiting.

“Well, how did it go?” she asked, point-blank.

Charlie took a long swig from the beer and then replied. “It’s complicated. The Prentisses are just like I remember them. They’re on my side, I think, although of course they’re on Maureen’s side too. Maureen doesn’t want to talk to me though. Maybe not now, or maybe not ever. I don’t know for sure.”

Charlie took another swig of beer and sat back into the sofa. Elaine, as usual, wanted more details. “So, how is Maureen doing? Where does she live? Why won’t she talk to you? What all did the Prentisses say?”

“You know Mom, they didn’t say anything at all about Maureen. I hadn’t thought about that before, but they didn’t. I think they did that on purpose. If Maureen wants to talk to me, she can tell me all of that stuff. The Prentisses just talked about me and them and what I’m trying to do.”

“Well, I think that’s a shame,” Elaine said. “They should have told you more about her.”

“I don’t think so Mom. I think they did just the right thing. They’re going to speak to her again and if she’s still opposed to the idea, I’ve promised to stay clear of her life. And Jack’s too. Under those circumstances, I think that they were on the right track.”

Elaine fluttered over that idea for a while but Charlie’s obvious contentment with it eventually smoothed her ruffled feathers. Charlie talked his mother into joining hem in his rented car to drive around and see the city that had changed so much since he had lived there. From Hillcrest to Alpine, and then back to Del Mar on the coast they drove and talked of anything that entered their heads. Charlie stopped for ice cream cones here and donuts there, which Elaine loved, and ended with a dinner at a seafood place in Point Loma.

It was evening when they returned, and Elaine soon excused herself and retired to bed. Charlie had the last beer while sitting in the back yard and watching what few stars could shine through the light pollution of San Diego at night. His phone was in his shirt pocket, where he could instantly reach it should it ring. It didn’t ring.

Finally Charlie went inside, took a long shower and stretched out on the bed. It was a warm, humid night, but he chose to shut the vent that allowed cooled air into his room. He opened the two windows and lay on top of his bed, listening to the crickets outside his window and distant traffic noise. The emotional exertion that he had expended this day crept upon him and before he had lain on his bed for ten full minutes he fell into a dreamless and restful slumber.

Charlie glanced out the window of the Boeing 737 as it flew past Long Beach, California. He had brought a book, thinking that he might kindle an interest in reading on the two and a half hour flight from Portland to San Diego. That plan didn’t work out however. He had never been much of a reader before and it didn’t look like that was going to change any time soon. The book remained in his lap as he flew south, back to the town where he was born and where he hoped to continue stitching his life back together. His mind was free to roam as he sat back as far as the seat would allow, and he used that freedom to review the past three weeks.

The memorial service for Duane had been harder on him than he expected. LuAnn looked drawn, and more frail than her normally thin frame usually looked. Her eyes were red, as if her tears had tattooed her grief into her flesh. The smoker’s cough was worse, suggesting long hours of finding solace in those packs of death instead of sleeping. Charlie had expected LuAnn to be above grief such as he had felt after losing Stevie. Why she should be any more impervious to the effects of losing a loved one than he had been, he couldn’t say.

LuAnn was surprised to see him there at the church, and when she did she put her arms around his neck and her head against his shoulder, gently sobbing and unwilling to let go for several minutes. Perhaps it was because she knew about Charlie’s own dance with death, and she felt a kinship with a fellow sufferer.

All that Charlie felt at first was awkwardness, This was something that he had never been able to do in his life, and his impulse was to disengage from the embrace and leave the church as quickly as possible. That is what he would have done at any time before the last two months.

On this day however, he had memories of his conversations with LuAnn, with D’Andra, with Rachael and Billy. Charlie knew that it was important that he stand and offer consolation to his friend, even if he had no way of knowing if he was doing anything the right way or the wrong way, so he stood and held LuAnn’s thin and softly shaking body against his own.

He thought of the weight and health that he had added to his own body the past few months and wished that he could simply transfer some of that to LuAnn if only he could hold her long enough. And perhaps something like that did happen. When at last LuAnn released her grip around his neck and stepped back away from him she had ceased to sob or tremble.

“Now I know how you were feeling, Charlie. I think I understand you better now than I ever did before,” she told him.

“You probably do,” he replied. “And so you should also know that we can recover from it, with a little help from others. Whatever you need, and whenever you need it, just call on me. Remember. Whatever it is.”

Other friends and family then surrounded LuAnn and she went to sit in the front of the church. Charlie went to the back row and took his place between Jason and Tank. Jason openly expressed his discomfort at being surrounded by a bunch of people who believed in fairy tales. Tank was a little bit more comfortable, although he was Catholic and felt awkward in a Protestant church.

“In my community, Latino and Catholic were like saying the same thing” Tank told him. “This here, it’s kinda like the same as being in a Catholic church, but at the same time it’s all different too.”

“So, how did you come by the name of Tank?” Charlie asked before the service started.

“Well, I was always bigger than the other kids in my neighborhood, and they began to call me ‘El Tanque.’”

Charlie looked at Tank uncomprehendingly.

“”El Tanque” he repeated. “You know, The Tank. Like a Sherman tank. Well, it just sorta stuck. You know what? I like it. Who’s gonna mess around with a guy named El Tanque?”

Charlie acknowledged the wisdom of that, and soon the service began. Jason fidgeted and looked like he might bolt at any minute, while Tank sometimes said something softly in Spanish and did that crossing thing that Catholics do between head and chest and their two shoulders.

Charlie’s attention, though, was mostly on the speaker. He guessed that he was a priest or pastor, or whatever they called him, and he listened carefully as that person spoke of a victory over death, of a place where Duane was whole and without pain in his leg and things like that. He spoke of death not being final, but instead being the beginning of a new life, and how God was present here in this world of suffering and there in the next world where suffering ceased to exist, and was tying the two together and making all things make sense in the end.

Charlie thought of Stevie not as the pale, battered corpse that he had been called to view in the Clasp County Morgue, or the body thumping up against a pier in the middle of the Columbia River imploring him to jump and join her. No, if this man was right, Stevie was now an even happier and more perfect model of a beautiful person than the one that he had previously adored, and was only waiting until he could join her in his own natural time. That picture gave Charlie a chill, and he wished desperately that this message was the truth.

“I’lll have to bounce this off of the guys at the Key and Lock,” Charlie told himself. He knew what Walt would think of it, and was pretty sure that Billy would not be sold on that idea either. Dom, Ted and Joe however might have another point of view.

“Rachael!” he thought. “I’ll have to speak to her about this. She’s more into this stuff than anyone I know. I’ll see how she views this idea.”

But he didn’t get a chance to do that before his trip to San Diego. Now that he had decided to make that trip he applied himself with even more energy than usual to the task of completing his remodel job for Carolyn. He was on the job at precisely nine in the morning and worked with little more than a lunch break if there was enough to do in a single day. At the end of two weeks after the memorial service he was dusting tile and countertops, adjusting the level on the gas range, and giving the cabinet doors their last swing open and shut to ensure smooth motion and balance. Carolyn was very pleased with his work.

“Charlie, this is better than I ever imagined that it could be,” she said as she took her first walk through the completed project. “This is exactly what I wanted. I feel as if Mom could walk through that door at any moment.”

“I’m glad that you like it,” Charlie replied. “And that’s not just blowing smoke. I really do appreciate that you took a chance on me when I didn’t look like such a good horse to bet on. Your confidence in me gave me back some confidence in myself, and that was worth more than the pay itself. Well, maybe by only a little bit.”

Carolyn just looked at Charlie for a moment, wondering where that thought had come from. She had worked with Charlie for nearly a month, off and on, and he was not given to expressing thoughts like that. Charlie could sense her puzzlement.

“I learned about that stuff from my counselor,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t usually think up smart stuff like that on my own.”

Carolyn laughed with him and assured him that her confidence had been amply repaid.

“And speaking of pay,” she said, “here’s your final draw.” She handed him a check which signified her satisfaction that the job was finished.

Charlie thanked her and said “You know, I’m a little bit sad that this is finished. I have really enjoyed working with Luke and you, and this was the first job that I’ve had in a while that was actually fun again. I hope that it can stay like that for me now. I’m guessing that it will.”

“I hope so too,” Carolyn said. “And while were on the subject, do you have any other work lined up now?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I’m converting a garage into a family room over in Parker’s Landing. I’ll start in maybe two weeks.”

“Oh,” Carolyn responded. “Well, the reason I asked is because I want to make you a proposition. Have you got time to sit down for a few minutes?”

Charlie agreed and sat at his usual place at the table, which now rested closer to the dining area window and farther away from sink and stove. Carolyn sat down opposite him and launched directly into the topic which she had in mind.

“I’ve told you a little about my work Charlie, how I purchase houses and renovate them to a level such that I can make a good profit and still give the buyer a good home.” Charlie nodded and Carolyn continued. “And I’ve also told you that I am not entirely satisfied with the general contractor whom I usually use for this work. Since I began helping you on this project I’m beginning to notice how he cuts corners, does some things ‘good enough,’ and simply doesn’t pay attention to details. Not the way that you do anyway. When I all him out on something, I get a look that I don’t like. Oh, he does what I tell him, but there’s no real respect for the work, as far as I can see, and there’s no respect for me either, I think.

So what I’m thinking is that I would like to replace him, and if you would be interested, I would like to hire you. If you would like to general the whole deal, that would be great. If you would rather work alone, and just do some of my work, that would be OK too. Either way, I would like for you to still work for me in some capacity. I trust your work and I appreciate the way you respect me. As a woman, and still relatively new to the business that I’m in, both of those things mean a lot to me.”

Charlie didn’t take long to accept Carolyn’s offer. He could fulfill his obligations to the remodel at Parker’s Landing easily enough while preparing to take over the construction end of Carolyn’s business. He would begin immediately as a consultant, supervising the work that was already underway, which would release Carolyn to find more houses which showed promise of being acquired and profitably resold.

“There is one thing though,” Charlie said. “Next week I will be flying to San Diego for the weekend, and maybe a little bit longer if needed. It is very important to me that I make this trip. Once I return I should have no distractions other than a short hunting trip in August. I’m taking a friend who’s got a disability, so it won’t be a long one.”

Carolyn smiled broadly at him when she answered. “You enjoy your trip to San Diego, and it just figures that you’re taking a disabled guy on a hunting trip. You know, you really have a heart for other people Charlie, and it shows all over you.”

Charlie blushed at this unexpected praise and replied “You may not have thought that about me for most of my life.”

“Well, maybe you’re right. But this model of Charlie Hamer is the only one that I know, and this is what I see.”

They spoke further about Charlie’s new position, which was to begin immediately and with pay, and Charlie told her of Jason. “He’s a guy who has been homeless, I think, since he got out of the Army. Or nearly that long. He’s now getting his life back together too.” And then he asked her approval of giving him a chance on her work. Carolyn just laughed and said “Oh, yeah. This guy who never had a heart for people! Of course you can give him a chance on my work.”

At last Charlie stood to leave. He loved the feelings that he had experienced here in this kitchen with this sharp and compassionate person. But it was time to attend to other things. Charlie walked to the door and promised to be ready in the morning to begin supervision of the work of her contractor. At the doorway Carolyn stood until he had cleared the storm door and was prepared to close it, and then spoke once again to him.

“Oh, and Charlie.”

“Yes’” he replied.

“I just want to thank you for sleeping in your truck while the exterior wall was open. That was very sweet of you and I felt very protected.”

Charlie’s jaw dropped and he turned bright crimson as he realized that he hadn’t been nearly as clever as he had thought. He recovered quickly though and said with an embarrassed smile “Well, I had to keep you safe so that I could get paid.” They both laughed and Charlie drove away feeling something like ecstasy.

That feeling of elation had not entirely worn off as the day arrived for Charlie to board the plane to San diego. He had expected that he would be nervous about flying to his old home to begin the process of trying to renew contact with Maureen and Jack, but the nerves were not nearly what he had expected. The events of the last three months had made a huge difference on Charlie, and he viewed the journey that he was now on with a mix of anxiety and excitement, in what ration and proportion he wasn’t entirely sure.

As the airplane began to make its descent toward Lindbergh Field he decided that excitement was winning the contest. Beach communities passed underneath him and now he could see the greatly changed skyline of downtown San Diego. His heart began to beat just a little faster, and when the wheels touched the ground an unexpected sensation of being home greeted him.

Charlie’s mother had offered to pick him up at the airport but he had declined. “No, Mom. I’ll want my own wheels,” he had told her, and she was too excited about having her son visiting as if from among the dead to offer any resistance. It didn’t take twenty minutes for him to be in a car and driving up the hill towards the Hillcrest neighborhood, and home.

Elaine Hamer was on the front porch waiting for Charlie before the car rolled to a stop two houses down the street from her residence. Charlie knew that she would be sitting in a chair in front of the big picture window and watching for him, and so he wasn’t surprised at her greeting.

“Hi Mom,” he said as if he was just getting home from school. Mrs. Hamer couldn’t say anything back; she just softly clapped her hands again and again as he walked up the flagstone path from the sidewalk to the house and mounted the stares to the porch. When he arrived at the top she threw both hands into the air and wrapped her arms around her son.

Charlie had begun to learn the art of the hug and was able to return her embrace, which lasted longer than all of their previous embraces combined, he thought. At length she commented that he must be hungry, which in fact he was. She ushered him into his old home for a lunch that would have satisfied three Charlie Hamers.

Finally, after eating and stowing his suitcase in his old bedroom, he sat down in the living room and began to get down to the point of his trip.

“So, Mom,” he began. “I’m going to take this first day easy and relax right here. I might take a walk in the neighborhood, or if you have any small repairs that are needed I could probably take care of them. But tomorrow I’m going to start trying to find Maureen and Jack. Have you been in touch with them at all, or with their parents?”

“No,” I haven’t seen Maureen or Jack in years, and I’m frankly unhappy about that. I liked Maureen, and Jack is my grandson, after all. I would have thought that I would get a little consideration”

Charlie was surprised to learn that there was another casualty in this affair; that there was another bleeding wound. He considered carefully what to say next.

“Well, Mom, I think you have a right to be upset. But I don’t believe that anything was done as an intentional slight to you. Maureen liked you too, and her withdrawing from contact with you just shows how hurt she was by this whole thing. Maybe if I can start a little healing, things can loosen up and you can reconnect too.”

And then an idea that Charlie hadn’t expected occurred to him. “You know, Mom, this affair was probably as hard on Maureen as Dad leaving us was on you. Maybe it was even harder for her, since at least all of us were still alive. Do you think that’s possible?”

Elaine quit rocking her chair. There was no expression on her face that Charlie could read. She simply stared out the window for what seemed like several minutes, but was actually much less than that. Finally, she began to rock her chair again slightly, and then looked at her son.

“Yes, I suppose that is possible. Very possible. I hadn’t thought of it in that context, but it could be. The circumstances were very different though, so I would have to think about that.”

“How so, Mom. How were they different?”

Charlie and his mother had never discussed his father before; he had never asked and she had never brought up his name. In fact, Charlie realized, he didn’t even know his father’s name! Mrs. Hamer thought a minute more and then spoke to Charlie on this topic for the first time.

“Everything that happened to your family was an accident, son. Stephanie’s death was not your fault. It wasn’t her fault either, and it damn sure wasn’t Maureen’s fault. Sometimes when you roll life’s dice you get sevens and sometimes you get snake eyes. Like the saying goes; ‘shit happens.’ Well, it happened to you. I’ll not criticize how you handled it either, since I haven’t walked an inch in your shoes, much less a mile. I guess I handled my grief a little better, but like I said, mine was different. What went on in our house was no accident.”

Elaine quit speaking and stared back out the big window. Charlie sat quietly on the sofa. It was the same sofa that he would lie on as a child when he was sick. He would watch the television and sleep, and wait until his body began to heal enough for him to keep down chicken with rice soup and Jello with cottage cheese and pineapple chunks in it. He thought of that healing, and how he hoped that it would be replayed here once again. Elaine continued to look out the window, and at last Charlie prompted her to continue.

“So,” he said softly. “So how was it different, Mom? If you want to tell me, that is.”

Elaine looked back at her son, and in a low and soft but clear voice and with dry eyes began to speak. “I kicked him out of the house.”

Charlie was shocked. “I thought that he left to play the high roller,” he said.

“Oh, he was a high roller all right,” Elaine replied. “He made good money. Always did. And he could flash a big wad any time that he liked. But he was a player too. He wasn’t satisfied with having a wife and a family and a home, and he wasn’t particularly concerned with keeping it a secret from me either. He was not usually mean, but he really didn’t care about us at all. We gave him a veneer of respectability, but I got tired of being used as a prop on his stage.”

Charlie was shocked to learn this about his father. He didn’t know why he was shocked, exactly, but this was not the picture that he had expected. He wondered what else he had wrong, and pressed his mother for more information.

“I was asked by my counsellor – oh, yes. I’m seeing a professional who’s helping me to get my life back together. So I was asked about my relationship with my father, and I realized that I don’t remember anything about him, really. She thinks it might be good for me to know something about him; it might help me to get myself sorted out. If you don’t mind talking about it, could you share some memories with me?”

Well, I suppose that I don’t mind. Not really,” she said. “But I don’t get any pleasure out of it. Your father usually ignored you and the other kids, but you most of all. You were the youngest and I think he was tired of kids by the time that you came along. You also had an independent streak that irked him. He always wanted to be the star of the show, even if he didn’t have a show worth watching, and you didn’t worship him enough, I guess. He would push you to do things that you didn’t want to do.”

Things like what, Mom?”

“Well, I do you remember Bobby Crowe?” Charlie nodded in the affirmative. “You remember how he used to bully you? Well, your father knew that you were not an aggressive kid and he said that he was going to “make a man out of you.” So he took you up to the playground one day when he saw Bobby there and told you to go stand up to him.”

“Shit, I don’t remember anything like that!”

“Well, it happened. You didn’t want any part of it but he wasn’t going to let you leave until you stood up to Bobby.”

“So what happened? I don’t remember ever getting into a fight with Bobby. He pushed me around until I graduated from high school, but I don’t remember a fight.”

“That’s because there wasn’t one. Your brother, Clark, saw what was going on and came home and told me. I went up to the playground and intervened. While he was explaining himself to me you slipped away and climbed up in the big pine tree that grew in front of the Hennings’ house and stayed there until nightfall.”

Charlie declared that he did not remember any such thing.

“Well it’s all true,” she said. “Chet always insisted on having dinner at four thirty in the afternoon, and when you didn’t come home until nearly dark he was mad, but I told him that if he said one word to you, well, let’s just say that he was in our bedroom pouting when you got home.

And then there was the time in the back yard. We had guests over for a barbecue. You remember the Burtons who lived on the corner?”

“Again, Charlie shook his head in the negative.”

“Well, they moved when you were seven or so. Anyway, he was fiddling around with Mrs. Burton then, or maybe he hadn’t gotten that far yet and was still trying to impress her. Anyway, you and Clark and Emily and their little girl, I can’t remember her name, were playing in the yard while Chet was cooking. You threw a dirt clod up into the air for some silly but innocent reason and it came down on that little girl’s head. It didn’t hurt her really, there was no blood or even a bump, but it scared her and she started to squeal like an angry tomcat. Chet took off his belt and lowered your pants right there in front of everybody and whipped you until you nearly passed out. You don’t remember that either?”

Charlie shook his head again to signify that he did not remember, and he now began to wonder how much more he had suppressed, and what D’Andra would make of this. His mother began to talk again though and interrupted his thought.

“I didn’t know what I would do if I left him. I had no skill that I could use in the labor force. A lot of women were in that position back then. I felt powerless, and as much a victim as you were. I thought that I just had to be quiet and take it. That day though, I began to wake up.

On that day I finally told him that that was enough. I pulled your pants back up and took you into the house, and I made you a dinner in there. He was really mad at me that night, and I thought that he might start in on me too. He had been drinking that day and continued to do so into the night. I think he passed out before he could get to that point though, and he forgot the whole thing by the next day.

Mr. Burton finally learned about the affair and they left that house on the corner. I don’t know if they divorced, but they probably did. Mr. Burton was a pretty big man, but your father moved in higher circles and knew people, so he simply came over one day and cussed Chet out and we never saw that family again.”

Charlie’s head was spinning by all of this information that was entirely new to him, and he pressed on to learn more about this man who was a total stranger to him.

“So, how did his leaving come about?” he asked.

“Well like I said, he didn’t just leave. I kicked his ass out of the house. I almost kicked it right out the door. By the time that you were finishing elementary school I had had enough. He was usually careful enough to not do anything that would show up on a police blotter but I had no guarantee that we were safe, so I went to our friends, the Turpins, the Essexes, and the O’Leerys, and I borrowed enough money to hire a good divorce lawyer. In no time he had Chet out the front door with nothing but his clothes.

Our friends were more than happy to help. They had watched him over the years and knew that he was trouble. He could be a charmer when he wanted to, and we had friends, but making friends and keeping friends was two different things. Soon enough they could see his true colors. They swore under oath about the things they had witnessed, and this house, and those exceedingly ‘generous’ alimony and child support checks?” My lawyer wrung them out of his cheap hide, and the judge smiled when he dropped the gavel on him.”

Elaine then turned her head and looked back out the window. There was a glitter in her eye and her jaw was set so that Charlie doubted that he could open it with his wrecking bar.

“So I’m really confused now about something, Mom. After he left I would sometimes see you sad, and I didn’t know what in the world I could do about it. I thought you were sad because it was an anniversary or a birthday or something. What was that really all about?”

“You were actually right about those times. They were anniversaries and so forth; days that were special to me.”

“But, with all of that history, why did they make you sad?”

Elaine turned and looked directly at Charlie and said “On those days I remembered the dreams that I had when Chet and I first met and married. I remembered how a girl from a poor family of Okies who fled the dust bowl and came to California met her Prince Charming. He would come into a restaurant where I was working my first and only job on his lunch break. I remembered moving into my first home of my own, my first dance, my first sex. Oh, yes. Don’t look so scandalized. How do you think you got here?

I thought that I had moved into my best daydream, but it was not long after you were born that I learned that I’d moved into my worst nightmare. I remembered the day we met, our first date, when he proposed to me and when we married. His birthday, your birthday, and Clark’s and Emily’s. Each one of those days had once been a blessing to my heart, and later became a bitter epitaph to my dead dreams of how it was supposed to be.”

Charlie was stunned and sat in silence as he tried to process all that he had just heard. He had believed that his father had been a non-factor in his life and now had learned that he had been a terror to him. He had believed too that his mother was abandoned and lonely. Instead, she was the victorious survivor who cherished her freedom from the oppressive hand of this faceless father of his.

“So Mom, I’ve been feeling guilty lately because I never could help you when I saw you were down. I’m thinking now that you were down, but in a lot different way than I thought you were. I don’t know now if there was any way that I could have helped. Was there any way?”

“I probably was in a different state than you could have imagined, and I suppose that I could have used a hug back then, but I didn’t know how to ask for one. I had pretty much given up on sentimental stuff by then and felt like I had nothing to offer to anyone.

Fact of the matter, I’ve felt bad myself for a good many years because I was never able to be there for you. You would get hurt, by your own doing or at your father’s hand, or get picked on by that damned Bobby Crowe, and I could clean you up and put a band aid on the worst of it, but I could never give you a hug, or even think of a word to say to you that would help.

I was so bound up in my own troubles that I couldn’t find a soft shoulder for you, and as time passed, my anger and bitterness about how life had turned out for me seemed to grow instead of wane. By the time you met Maureen I felt like I was your nanny more than I was you mother, and that by my own choice. Clark and Emily had grown up and moved out as quickly as they could by then and there was only us, and when you met her, she and her family took that responsibility off of my shoulders it seemed.

And I was glad to give it up. I loved you and Clark and Emily. I celebrated your victories and suffered for you all when you stumbled, but I didn’t know how on earth to connect with you on any more than the most superficial level. I have friends, true enough, but it’s still like that. We give each other enough support to keep a friendship alive but not much more than that.

That is not the girl that I used to be. What I became was the result of being pressed and squeezed and deformed by my fifteen years with Chet. I could protect you from him, but I couldn’t give you much more than that, and for that I am truly sorry.”

Elaine sat back in her rocking chair but did not allow herself to relax. The jaw was still set, the spine rigid and straight, her chest rising and falling with short, shallow breaths, as if trying to vent off the anger that her story had dredged up from a vault of painful memories.

Charlie sat equally still, trying to begin to sort this new information that was exploding into his brain. He didn’t need D’Andra to realize that his inability to extend comfort to other hurting people did not arise from his father. It was his mother, who was a victim herself, and who’s wounds had locked her heart in an iron cage for which no key could be found, that had modeled this aloofness.

Now, as she approached her eighth decade of life, she had opened up to Charlie and allowed some of that hurt to ooze out onto the old, familiar living room floor; a floor that Charlie once played on, and where he had stretched out on a rug watching the television with Maureen, whispering things in her ear that would make her giggle and punch him lightly on the shoulder. He thought of LuAnn, who had just lost her husband and was pouring out her grief to God and to family and friends, and who opened her heart to receive comfort in return and regain her balance.

Elaine Hamer never had those blessings; didn’t know how it all worked. Charlie hadn’t either, until recently at any rate. But as he looked at his mother he felt the beginnings of a caring response such as he had never experience towards her in his life. He thought of Rachael and her damaged eye, Jason and Billy struggling to live and move on with the trauma of what they had experienced in war, and LuAnn, and it was as if a tide of human caring had at last ceased its ebb and slowly began to flow in his life.

He had no idea how it would be accepted, but he decided that he would not try to staunch that flow. This was not a time to think of Civil War battles or problems in matching drywall to plaster. Charlie looked at his mother, sitting proud yet wounded in her chair, lonely and still a victim of the disappointment that she had experienced in her life.

“Mom, would you let me hold you now?” he asked.

She stared at Charlie as if she didn’t understand his words.

“I know. We don’t do this sort of thing; either of us. It’s weird for me too. But if it’s OK, I would like to hug you. I’ll keep it short, if your like, but I wish you would let me.”

Charlie could see emotions playing behind the eyes of his mother, and he could only guess at what they could be. He rose up from his place on the sofa and walked half-way to the chair where his mother was sitting and stood there.

She looked at him and said “We’ve hugged before. We did on the porch, just today.”

“Yes, I know,” he said. “That was ‘hello.’ This one would be ‘I know that you’re hurting. This one would be ‘I want to help you carry the load.’ This one would be ‘I love you, regardless of our history.’”

Elaine sat for a minute longer and then, slowly and almost mechanically, she rose up and walked the few feet to where her son stood. He wrapped his arms around his mother and pulled her gently against his chest.

And then, little by little, he felt the beginning of a melting, like springtime on a snowfield. The spine softened and the head lowered onto Charlie’s shoulder. No words were said; not a muscle moved, but two souls shifted with a power that could shake mountains.

After a long embrace Elaine let go and returned to her chair. Charlie stood still for a moment longer, and then returned to his place on the sofa. Elaine was rocking her chair again but the motion was more fluid and easy, a rocking of the cradle as opposed to a burning of nervous energy. Charlie could see the change and wondered if a change could also be seen in him as well. At last Elaine spoke to her son.

“Charlie, I know that you were going to wait until tomorrow to start looking for Maureen and Jack, but I suggest that you start right away. I’ve been wound up tight as a drum for most of my life and it looks like I’ve shared that curse with you. You’ve come here with a good mission in mind. An important mission. I suggest that you get busy with it now.”

Two weeks after moving in with Billy, Charlie was beginning to feel like he had the beginnings of a handle on life. The dismal apartment where for two years he had existed but not lived was now a memory. The kitchen remodel job at Carolyn’s house was progressing ahead of schedule, even though she had been far too busy of late to help him very much. Instead, her nephew Luke had shown an interest in the construction arts and pitched in whenever he could. Even though Luke knew nothing about Charlie’s craft, he was a smart and observant kid who could take instruction and turn it quickly into performance.

Charlie liked the young man and genuinely enjoyed sharing the work with him, and he began to imagine what it would be like if it was Jack instead of Luke that he was working with. Of course, Jack didn’t have the natural talent or interest that Luke seemed to possess, but then Charlie had never lavished the patient attention on Jack that he was currently bestowing on Luke. Over the course of the past two weeks Charlie had become convinced that he should pay Luke something for his labor, and also that he must reach out to his own son and try to rebuild a relationship with him.

Carolyn would inspect Charlie’s work every chance that she could, and she learned from him in much the same manner as Luke did. The design flaws in her bathroom which she nearly allowed when Charlie first began to work for her would never happen to her now, as she began to learn to look two and even three steps ahead.

“I’m sorry that I can’t spend more time here on the job with you,” she had once told him. “I’m convinced that your end of this deal is where all of the fun is.”

When she said that Charlie looked down at the black thumbnail that was the result of an errant stroke of his framing axe. He also felt the ache in the bottom of his foot where he had stepped on an old ring-shanked drywall nail, and the throb in his shoulder where he had received his tetanus shot as a result of that nail. “Yeah,” he replied as he inspected the blackened thumbnail. “With a few obvious exceptions, this really is where the fun is.”

The outside wall of Carolyn’s house was now pushed four feet out and sealed on the outside. This resulted in the house once again being secured from the outside world, and Charlie felt like at last he could breathe easier. He had hated the thought of there being only one layer of polyvinyl sheeting between Carolyn and the world that he had come to know so well at the apartments.

Even though Luke was staying with her during this period, he was, after all, just a kid. A big kid, yes, and a strong one, but just a kid all the same. The determined evil that prowled through the darkened streets of Vancouver, even the streets far from the downtown apartment that he had so recently inhabited, was truly a match and even more than a match for one good-hearted teenage boy. Charlie tried hard to make sure that Carolyn didn’t know about the nights when he had slept in the cab of his truck a few houses up the street from hers.

Today he was going to meet with D’Andra, and intended to share with her his plan to make an attempt to connect with Maureen. He had given the idea a great deal of thought and had shared it with the guys at the Key and Lock. Even Walt, who continued to hold to the opinion that this was a fool’s errand, agreed that with the help of a small miracle – “not that I believe in that crap,” he had added – there was a possibility that it might work.

But first he was going to have a good breakfast. Billy liked to cook, and Charlie was beginning to put on a few pounds. Today, however, he wanted to have his morning meal at Leroy’s, mostly in order to see how LuAnn was doing. As he pulled up to a stop in a parking space near the restaurant, he noticed that he now felt like a visitor to the Vancouver downtown rather than a denizen of its streets. He liked the change.

The place was busy when he entered and once again he saw Jason seated at his usual table by the kitchen door. There were open stools at the counter, but Charlie went to see if he could share a table with the young man.

“Got room for another stray dog?” he asked. Jason smiled and waved a hand at the chair opposite his own. Charlie sat down, picked up a menu and asked “What’s good today?”

“Pretty much same old same old.” Jason replied. “They don’t change the menu much around here, and if Tank’s cookin’, well, it’s Tank’s cookin’.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Charlie said. At that moment Peggy burst through the door pushing an old aluminum cart loaded with condiments. She looked harried, but came dutifully over to the table when she saw Charlie seated there. She asked if he’d had time to look at the menu.

“I have,” Charlie replied. “I’ll take the hamburger steak with hash browns and gravy. Oh, and I am paying for my meal today.”

Charlie expected to get a rise out of Peggy with his snide comment, but he was disappointed. Peggy gave a weak smile and went to stick his order onto the wheel in the kitchen window.

“Huh,” Charlie said to Jason. “I thought that I’d get a little bit of a push-back from her with that one. Do I look like I have money or something?”

“She’s probably still getting over the fact that I have money,” Jason replied.

Charlie looked at Jason with surprise and said “You do?”

“Yeah,” Jason laughed. “I got a part-time job in housekeeping at Clark General Hospital, It’s a float position with no benefits and no guaranteed hours, but somebody’s always sick or wants a day off, so I’m working about twenty five or thirty hours per week so far.”

“Wow, that’s great news,” Charlie said. “How do you feel, being in the loop like that?”

“You mean, can I hack it? Will the loser finally get it together?”

Charlie regretted his question instantly. “No, I don’t mean that at all. I’m just getting my own act back together, and I live with a guy who’s taking his own first steps too. I just wondered how it’s working for you. I didn’t mean any insult.”

“That’s OK, man. It’s cool. I was must monkeying with your head. No offense taken. And the answer is that it feels good. I have to keep my mind focused on doing the job, and not getting sucked into all of the silly bullshit that people who’ve never really had it rough like to wallow in, but it’s worth it. Peggy brings me refills now that I can pay for them, so that makes it all worth it.”

Indeed, Peggy was at that moment bringing Charlie an empty mug and a pot full of coffee. She placed the mug in front of him and filled it, then refilled Jason’s half-empty mug. Charlie had to suppress a laugh as Peggy spoke with them like regular customers and Jason acted like he was a captain of industry.

They continued to chat about each other’s work situations and the quality of grease that tended to pool in their plates here at Leroy’s until Peggy brought Charlie his food. For the next few minutes after that, silence reigned at the table.

At last Charlie scraped up the last bit of gravy with a crust of toast and pushed away the plate. He drained his coffee and barely suppressed a low belch. Jason was sipping his coffee and resting in his chair, letting his meal begin to digest. He looked completely at ease with the world, and that is how Charlie felt too. At length Charlie began the conversation again.

“So, where is LuAnn? Is she out today taking care of Duane? He’s had his operation, hasn’t he?”

Jason’s face clouded over and he sat a little straighter in his chair. “Haven’t you heard, man?”

“Heard what?” Charlie asked. “Did she retire or something?”

“No, man. Duane died. He died on the operating table.”

Charlie sat speechless in his chair. His mind quickly drew up images of a worried LuAnn, telling him about her fears but certain that things would be all right.

“Shit, man,” he said. “That’s awful! What happened? LuAnn thought they would be OK.”

“Yeah, she did” Jason replied. “That’s usually when life rears up and bites you in the ass, isn’t it? The surgery went fine, as far as anyone knows, but an artery or something just blew up in his brain. BAM! Alive to room temperature in sixty seconds. She’s a good egg, too. This really sucks.”

Charlie was speechless for a minute, and then asked “Well, how is she doing? Does anybody know?” He tried to get his mind to grapple with the bad news. When Stevie had died, he remembered, friends and business acquaintances had brought over meals and done chores and errands for them. That was the only healthy response that Charlie could now think of offering, not that his cooking would be a good thing for anybody. Finally he asked “Is anybody doing anything to help her?”

“I don’t really know,” Jason replied. “There’s a tip jar by the door, and regular customers are putting money into it to help her out. You could ask Peggy though. she was closer to LuAnn that I ever was.”

Charlie sat silently in his chair, thinking about LuAnn’s good-natured attitude and the warmth that she had extended to him when he began to visit many weeks before. She always had a quick laugh and a wise opinion whenever he would talk to her about his troubles. Now it was her turn to be in the fire. What could he do or say to her? He couldn’t even comfort his own wife, so what could he say to this casual friend? Charlie was wrestling with these thoughts when Peggy came to refill his cup.

“Peggy,” he said. “I just heard about LuAnn’s husband. Can you tell me how she’s doing, or if she needs anything?”

Peggy seemed to be surprised at Charlie speaking to her in such a familiar and ernest fashion. Her look of surprise quickly faded though and she responded to his question with what looked to Charlie like genuine compassion.

“LuAnn’s a strong woman. She’s doing fine; or at least as fine as you could expect. She and Duane have family, and they are helping a lot.”

“I would like to help if there’s any way that I can,” Charlie said, while wondering what on earth he could possibly do.

“Well,” Peggy began. “She and Duane went to the Peter and Paul Luthern Church. You know, the one about two blocks on the other side of the courthouse from here.”

Charlie nodded as if he knew where that was.

“They’re holding a memorial service there this Saturday. Duane was a deacon or an elder or whatever they call it there, and so they would probably be able to tell you if they need anything. Or you could just go to the service. I think LuAnn would like to see you there. She was pretty fond of you,” Peggy then turned her eyes towards Jason and added “and you too.”

She then turned away to resume her service to the hungry patrons of Leroy’s, and left Charlie staring mutely at Jason. At length, Jason broke the silence.

“I was going to go to the service already. Tank told me about it yesterday. I don’t spend much time in churches. Like, never. LuAnn is real, though. You know, she’s never looked at me like I was a worm, or had some damned disease. I think of her like she’s family or something.”

Charlie knew that he had to leave soon in order to be on time for his appointment with D’Andra. He suddenly wanted to know more about Jason; what he knew about LuAnn, what he had going on in his life. At last Charlie shared a completely random thought that had only that moment entered into his head.

“You ever do any construction?” It only took Jason a moment to reply.

“Nope. Never picked up a hammer.”

“Good,” Charlie replied. “That means you don’t have any bad habits to unlearn. Would you have any interest in trying out the construction trade?”

“Shit, I don’t know. Is it anything like work?”

“Hell yes it’s work.” Charlie then showed Jason his damaged thumb. “Construction will treat you bad sometimes, but it’ll love you if you love it.”

Jason was not sure how to respond to that. “So, what? Are you offering me a job?”

“Well, no. Not exactly,” Charlie replied. “I just want to know if you would be interested if I did. The person I’m working for now is already taking a chance on damaged goods by using me, and I wouldn’t expect her to take another. I’ll be done with the project that I’m on in a few weeks though, and I could use an extra hand going forward. Nobody else out there is as good as I am though, so training a new helper from scratch makes all of the sense in the world to me. What do you think?”

Jason mulled that thought for a few moments and then asked “Are you going to bust my balls if I go for this?”

“You bet your ass,” Charlie replied. “I can’t have some cull dogging it and trashing my work. But I understand that you don’t have any experience at this kind of work and I’m OK with that. I’ll demand that you do things right, but I’ll show you how to do those things, and for the most part I’ll consider it my own failure if you don’t get it right the first time. Or the second time too, for that matter. This stuff doesn’t just come to you by magic. I guess I’m saying; or really I’m asking, would you like to give construction a shot under another guy who’s had the shit kicked out of him by life and knows how that can feel?”

It didn’t take Jason more than a minute to consider Charlie’s proposal, and he said “Your offer is intriguing. Let me make a counter offer. I’ll keep my job at the hospital, but I’ll mostly take the off-hour shifts. You know, the night shift and weekends and so forth. If I find that construction suits me, I’ll back away from the hospital, but if construction isn’t my cup of tea I’ll still have my hospital gig.”

“That makes sense to me,” Charlie replied. “Do you have a phone, or some way that we can stay in touch?”

Jason answered in the affirmative and they exchanged phone numbers. Peggy quickly noticed that the wo men were ready to leave and brought the checks to their table.

“There’s no way that you’re going to let me pay for this, is there?” Charlie asked.

“Not on your life,” Jason answered. “But I wish that you would let me pay for yours.”

Charlie thought about Jason’s offer, and then about all of the time that he had recently spent disconnected from the world, just as Jason had been. He had descended into a dark pit where he would not allow anyone to intrude, nor from which he would make any effort to escape. He looked at Jason and saw a dim shadow of himself.

Charlie liked this young man who, like himself, was only beginning to rebuild a life. He had hated himself for two years, and was disgusted with his failure to attend to the things that really mattered. But this young man; this dim shadow, this metaphor for himself, was also emerging from his own dark place and was a very likable person. He was worth taking a chance on. he had something to offer to the world that the world would be the loser to ignore. Could it be that this description fit Charlie the same as it did Jason?

And now this wounded, broken fellow traveller had just asked if he could do Charlie a favor. He had asked Charlie if he could “bless” him, to borrow LuAnn’s terminology. In some dim, disorganized way, Charlie understood that something important was happening here. The course of the rest of his life, and perhaps Jason’s too, could turn on the answer, and the answer was clear to him.

“Yeah. Sure,” he replied. “There may not be any such thing as a free lunch, but nobody’s said anything about there not being a free breakfast. How ‘bout I cover the tip?”

The two men agreed to that arrangement and put their money on the table. In keeping with his promise to LuAnn, Charlie left a generous tip for Peggy. They got up from the table together and Charlie headed for the door while Jason walked into the kitchen. “Probably still needs to work for a few meals” Charlie thought. “That’s good. Shows responsibility. Yeah, I think Jason could work out.If he wants to, that is.”

By now Charlie was coming very close to being late fort his appointment with D’Andra. He climbed into his truck and made the short trip to her cottage in less than five minutes. He parked the truck and picked up a sack of vegetables that he had picked from the garden. “There’s no way that I can compete with what comes out of her oven,” Charlie thought, “but I can at least try.”

He knocked on the door and it was quickly opened by D’Andra. “Hello, Charlie,” she said with her warm and pleasing smile. “Please, come in.”

Charlie was prepared to hand D’Andra the bag of cucumbers and squash and green beans, with a couple of onions thrown in, and hoped that he would receive a little praise for his gardening expertise. And indeed that did come. Eventually. But before he could hand over the sack his nose was assaulted, in the best sense of the word, by a smell that he remembered from his childhood.

“Oh. My. Goodness!” he said. “You’ve been baking bread!”

“I certainly have,” she replied. “It’s a family tradition to bake our own bread and it’s our family recipe. I’d tell you what’s in it – – -.” D’andre paused at that point, and Charlie picked up the thread seamlessly.

“But you’d have to kill me?”

“Something like that,” she said, the smile not changing really, but somehow seeming even warmer than before. At last her eyes fell on the sack that Charlie cradled in his arms. “What have you got there?” she asked.

Charlie remembered his gift and extended the sack to D’Andra. “Here. This is for you. I grew this in the garden that I’ve been telling you about.”

As she looked into the sack her eyes lit up and her smile erupted even larger than it already was. “Oh, Charlie. That is the nicest gift that I could ever imagine. We had a truck patch behind our house when I was growing up and I loved the foods that my mother and older sister, and sometimes my aunt Clarissa would make out of what we would grow. Believe me, Charlie. I will enjoy this produce every bit as much as I enjoy the things that come out of my oven. And they’ll be better for me, too” she said with a laugh. “Now come on in and sit down. We’re having home baked white bread, toasted or not as you prefer, with jam and butter and coffee. Does that sound OK?”

“That sounds like heaven,” Charlie replied as D’Andra carried the sackful of produce into the kitchen. Instead of sitting down, Charlie followed D’Andra.

“When I was a boy, we used to go up to College Avenue, to a bakery that was about two blocks from our house. Mr. and Mrs. Metzler owned that bakery, and they lived in a house on the opposite side of the alley, behind our place. The Metzlers were Seventh Day Adventist, I think, because the bakery was closed on Saturdays but open for business on Sunday.

At 10:00 in the morning they would bring the day’s bread out of the ovens and place it on the racks to cool. My brother and sometimes the other kids in the neighborhood and I would show up at 10:15 and buy loaves of it while they were still warm. We sat down on the curb right outside of the bakery and pulled off handfuls of warm bread and washed it down with sodas. Those are some of my best memories.”

“Well, I hope this bread gives you some warm memories too. Here, put some butter and jam on this toast, and pour yourself a cup of coffee.

Charlie did as he was told and then sat down in his usual spot on the love seat. Salome the cat was nowhere to be seen, so he placed his small plate with buttered and jammed toast on the table next to it and found a coaster for his coffee. D’andra joined him shortly with two pieces of toast of her own, but hers was spread much more thinly than was Charlie’s.

“Oh,” he said. “It looks like I made a pig of myself here.”

“No, it looks more like you made yourself at home, which is what I would like for you to do.”

“Well,” he responded. “Then don’t be surprised if I make another trip to your kitchen.”

“Pleased would be more like it” she replied.

Charlie still had a stomach full of the best grease that Tank could cook, and knew that seconds on D’Andra’s bread was unlikely. “There’s no harm in setting the stage, just in case” he told himself. At length, D’Andra put her plate of toast on the table and sat back in her chair.

“Well, Charlie. What are we going to talk about today? Have you made a decision about trying to contact Maureen?”

“Yes, I actually have. But there’s something new that I would like to discuss first.”

“You’re in charge,” she said. “What is it?”

I got some pretty sad news today. Pretty sad. You know my friend LuAnn, whom I have spoken of?” Charlie went on to explain the details of Duane’s death, as best he knew them.

“So, how did it make you feel when you heard about it?”

“You know, my first impulse was to eat my breakfast as quickly as I could and leave; just get away from that scene as fast as I could.”

“Sort of like when your mother would be depressed when you were a child?”

“Yeah, sorta like that. I was really sad for LuAnn. I remembered how fondly she spoke of him, and how she once told me “I don’t know what I would do if something ever happened to him,” or something like that. I just knew the sadness that she was feeling, and I wanted to run from that sadness. I didn’t know what to do with it.”

“And did you run?”

“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t. LuAnn was a friend and a kind voice when I was really at the bottom. I can’t express how much her kindness meant to me; still does mean to me. Well, I couldn’t just throw her under the bus.

Trouble is, I don’t know what to do. How do I help her? I think she’ll be OK financially, and she has family and friends, so what in the world could I ever do?”

D’Andra took a small bite from her toast and chewed it slowly, and then took a sip of coffee. At last she said “Maybe she could tell you what you can do.”

“Huh?” Charlie asked.

“Maybe she could communicate to you, one way or another, how it is that you can help her. Sometimes people want to talk about their loved one, and all you have to do is listen. Other times people don’t want to talk at all, but they dread being alone. In those cases just being a friend and sharing someone’s space with them is what they want.

Some people want a shoulder to cry on. I know how uneasy that would make you, Charlie, but maybe that is what you would need to do to help your friend. The problem is that you can’t know unless you make contact with her. Is there any way that you can do that?”

“Yes, there is,” Charlie replied. “There will be a memorial service this Saturday at a little church not too far from here. Peter and Paul Lutheran, I think Peggy said.”

“Oh, yes. I know where that is. Corner of 13th and Knox.”

“Well, I’m thinking of going, but I don’t have a lot of experience at being in churches. I’ve asked Rachael if I can go to hers sometime, but I haven’t really gotten around to it yet. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to act in a church.”

“I think the key is to not act at all, Charlie. Just bring who you are and don’t give two thoughts about any sort of show that you’re supposed to put on. Your friend sounds like she will let you know if there’s anything that she needs. Other than that, you just being there will probably be the best thing that you can do for her, right now at lease. Besides, you’ll know her at least, so you won’t exactly be there alone in the church.”

“No, I wouldn’t be alone,” he agreed. “Jason, a recently homeless guy who I’ve eaten with at Leroy’s said that he’ll be there. And I’ll bet Tank, the cook, will be there too. I don’t know him really, but I’d know his hash browns and gravy anywhere.”

“Good. That settles it. You know, Charlie, I believe that I can see something important here. This feeling of wanting to be present for your friend, and actually stepping up to do it, is what you were not able to do for your wife and son. And really, couldn’t do for your mother either. How do you feel about that? Does it feel like something’s changed, or maybe shifted there?”

Charlie thought about that for a while. In his concern for LuAnn he had nearly forgotten about the trauma of his daughter’s death and the effect that it had on his family; the events that were the reason for his meeting with D’Andra in the first place. Now he thought about Maureen and Jack, suffering in silence while he dealt with his own grief – or didn’t deal with it – in his own cocoon. The same way that he had dealt with his own father’s desertion and his mother’s loneliness.

“You know, something has changed. I can’t just turn my back and walk away. ‘I don’t know what to say or do’ just isn’t a good enough answer, even if it’s the damned truth. Uh, pardon my language.”

“I’ve heard it before, Charlie.”

“So, this is where I got stuck with my family; I couldn’t help them because I couldn’t help myself. Just like I couldn’t help my mother. But, why couldn’t I help my mom? It’s not like I really cared one way or the other if my father stayed or left.”

“Really, Charlie? Is that true? Can you remember your relationship with your father before he left?”

Charlie thought hard about that, and at length he answered “No, I can’t say that I do. It’s like I said; he didn’t do much with me, so I didn’t have any real connection with him.”

“Well, I know that this will sound a little wierd, but try to go along with me. Do you remember not-doing things with your father? I mean, did you ask him to play catch with you, and he said “No”? Or do you remember waiting for him to come home when you got A’s on your report card? Or F’s? Do you remember a birthday party where he didn’t show up? Or when he did? What, exactly, do you remember about your father?”

“Oh, I remember a lot,” Charlie began. “I remember him being at the dinner table – – – .” Charlie’s mind wandered at this point, as he tried to dredge up a memory of his dad. After a few moments of silence D’Andra spoke again.

“Do you remember him being there on specific occasions, or do you remember that he was sort of generally there around that time?”

“Well, I remember—-. I remember the night that, – – -. Uh, I remember spilling my milk once. He grabbed me by the collar and made me go to my room.”

“That’s it? You remember once that you spilled your milk at the table and your father got upset?”

Charlie thought hard about his relationship with his father, certain that a flood of specific memories would soon erupt out of his clogged brain, and that he would then share them with D’Andra, but the flood never came. After a few minutes of this Charlie just looked a D’Andra with a puzzled expression on his face and finally said “You know what? You’re right. I don’t remember diddle about my dad. I don’t even remember what he looked like. I’ve always had an image of him in my mind, on the few occasions when I would think of him at all, but that could just as well have been a mannikin at the Sears store down at the mall.”

Charlie fell silent again, and D’Andra was silent too. He picked up his piece of toast, which was quite cold by now, and munched on it absently as he let the idea sink in that he had no true picture of his father in his mind, and hadn’t had any such picture for a very long time. D’andre was obviously giving him space to ponder this revelation, and Charlie was using this time to begin to try to sort things out.

It was at this moment that Salome decided to make her entrance. She jumped towards the back of the love seat from behind and overshot the landing, which caused her to slide over the back and tumble, a ball of fur and claws, onto the cushion right next to Charlie.

“Ah!” Charlie cried, and jumped up out of the seat. D’andre jumped as well when Charlie reacted to the unstable flying feline. Salome, the center of the commotion, decided that two startled humans watching such an undignified performance was no place for a cat to loiter and took off running towards an open doorway into a back room.

Charlie looked down and saw that his half-eaten toast with butter and jam lay face down on the hardwood floor, right next to what he suspected was a very expensive area rug.

“Oh, good grief! Excuse me! Here, let me clean this up.”

As he reached down to pick up the toast D’Andra began to giggle, and soon it swelled into a belly laugh that was infectious. Charlie soon was laughing too. D’andre brought some paper towels and a squirt bottle out of the kitchen and quickly cleaned up the mess while both of them still laughed.

“I guess I should write a textbook and advise students to never let a cranky old cat without front claws have free rein in a house when you are in a session,” she told Charlie.

“On the other hand, I don’t know of anything that can loosen you up more quickly,” he replied.

At last they sat down and returned to business. “I think this is important Charlie, but I want to move on now. I would like for you to think about your father though. Think of anything you can remember about him, and most of all think of anything you can remember about how you felt when he left. Will you do that?”

“I’ll certainly give it my best shot,” Charlie said.

“Good. Now, what about Maureen and Jack?”

Charlie shared with D’Andra the advice that he had received from Rachael and LuAnn and the guys at the Key and Lock, and especially from Billy. “I was especially impressed with Billy’s thoughts,” he said. “I think it’s possible that there’s still a job that it’s my duty to perform. No, not a job really. More like, well, I don’t know. Like a responsibility. No, it’s not that either.”

Charlie told D’Andra about the fingers in the arteries, while she listened intently. When he finished she softly said “Yes. Exactly! You tell that young man that I couldn’t say it any better than he did. On second thought, I don’t even know if I could say it that good. It’s neither a job nor a responsibility. It’s more like a will to act on behalf of someone who is in some way a part of your soul. A part of your soul that is incomplete; it’s wounded and bleeding, so to speak, and by acting to stop the bleeding from somebody else’s wound, somebody who you love, or even once loved, you are stopping the bleeding in your own wound”

D’Andra was beginning to get excited, or as close to excited as Charlie had ever seen her. “And by addressing Maureen’s wound you help with your own healing, and in the process you offer Maureen the opportunity to help in her own healing by helping you. Yes. Excellent. Charlie, I have worked very hard to learn ways to help people, but your Billy sounds like a natural. So what do you intend to do?”

“I don’t exactly know,” Charlie replied. “In less than two months billy will begin attending classes at the college. I’m taking him hunting before that, and I’ll be on my job for another couple of weeks or so. I think that between ending my job and taking Billy hunting I’ll have a couple of idle weeks. Of course, I’ll have to be looking for work, but I think I’ll take a weekend, or maybe three or four days, and fly to San Diego. I’ll visit my mother – I know that she isn’t expecting that – and I’ll call my former in-laws from her house. I hope they will allow me to speak to them. Maybe they will give a message to Maureen.”

“Mmmm. That sounds like a workable plan” D’Andra said, and then sat silently. After a moment or two she continued speaking. “I think that is a very good plan, and I would say ‘get to it.’ I wish that I could call them for you and tell them how hard you are working at getting your experiences into a proper perspective and making things right, but I guess that would run counter to just about every accepted practice in my field.

Well, Charlie. It looks like the time has flown past us again. Just to recap though, I think your willingness to step out of your comfort zone and be with a hurting friend is wonderful. This LuAnn must be a remarkable woman. Certainly, she is a lucky one to enjoy your friendship. Also, I would like for you to spend some time remembering all that you can about your father. There are some locked doors there, I think, that would benefit from being opened to let a little air in.

Lastly, I’m already excited about your trip to San Diego. Perhaps you can learn some things about your father from your mother, if she will talk about him. But most important is the chance to complete some business with your wife and son. Even if Maureen is not interested in your help or being in contact with you, you will be reaching out; doing your part. I think that will be very important as you go forward.

Now, let me wrap up the bread. No! Don’t even try to argue. If you don’t want it, take it to that excellent young man that you’re living with. No ten loaves of bread could make us even for those beautiful vegetables that you brought me. Shelby loves them too, but he grew up in the city and doesn’t know the first thing about growing vegetables. I hope that we can get around to putting in a garden some day.”

Charlie dutifully took his bread and bid D’Andra good bye. As she closed the door behind him he walked in a haze to his truck. The shock of hearing about Duane’s death was jarring enough by itself, but the possibility that his own father had more of an impact on his life, both by his presence and later by his absence, was a thought that truly shook his mind.

But he would have to think about that later. Carolyn would be waiting for him to come as soon as possible to begin putting her new kitchen back together. The external walls were once again secured, and although Luke was now free to return to his normal activities he chose to stay on and help every day that Charlie was working. Charlie enjoyed the company of both Carolyn and Luke, and must now clear his mind of distractions so that he could devote all of his attention to his work and to these two new and unexpected friends.